Monday Manufacturing Motivation – with Julia Phelan PhD

Curt Anderson  00:00

gradients oh we’re live and let’s see go live it’s on my I realized my my thing we’re live oh there we go we are live and we professionals are what here Daymond Yes,

Damon Pistulka  00:15

you go wait a second time doing this

Curt Anderson  00:17

you go away for Yeah, we did one last week so you know you go away for a couple of weeks and we have no clue what’s happening Damon? Happy Monday my friend. Dude I’m a senior like a year how you been?

Damon Pistulka  00:28

I’ve been great, Kurt. Thank you.

Curt Anderson  00:29

Well, welcome back. We’ll dig into that later because, boy, Damon do we have just an amazing, incredible I’m almost at a loss of words of starting off the program. I know that’s never happened before. So welcome, everybody. Boy joining us here drop a note in the chat box. We love to know who’s out there where you’re coming from. And we welcome invite you to connect with our esteemed guest today. Julia feelin PhD. How are you today?

Julia Phelan  01:00

I am amazing. Thank you. Thank you so much for having me.

Curt Anderson  01:03

Well, welcome. Welcome to the program. We have Damon we have we officially have V learning scientist here. She is just a dynamo, a powerhouse. A dear close friend. I’m just so honored and thrilled for to be here. Now, Damon, you know, I haven’t changed things since you. You’ve been out for a couple weeks. I haven’t changed our format. So, you know, I only have one question that I like to ask, right? Yes. So I’m going to kick it off with that question. But I don’t know. Damon, I know you’re a suit guy. And you know, you you know, I know when you were a child you wanted to become a detective, right? You’re like, so not you know, you’re pretty sharp guy. If you notice, like there’s a little accent and Julie like I’m not big, like a little bit just not a big linguistic guy, if that’s right word, but you know, so Julie has like a subtle. So Julia, you are LA Girl dot PhD from UCLA. And just we were talking about some great California stories, but I’m not detecting a California accent. I think there’s a different accent. So I’m gonna go here for my first question today. Okay, when you were a little girl growing up, I believe you might have grown up across the pond if I’m not mistaken. When you were a little girl growing up. Could you please share? Who was your hero? Who was your hero as a little girl growing up across the pond?

Julia Phelan  02:24

Wow. I don’t know whether I would say hero necessarily, but I really really liked Julianne Drew.

Damon Pistulka  02:38

There you go. What?

Curt Anderson  02:40

Damon dropped the mic on that. We are now when we had rosemary on if you recall Robin I completely butchered. She said her. I butchered what movie. So, Julia, what movie was your favorite from Julia from Julie Andrews. Sound of Music 100% Sound of Music 100 So should we should we should we go into song right now? Daymond. Maybe there’s a bunch that we could go into. Right? Yeah. Well, you know what? I don’t want to lose anybody. So yeah, leave it towards the end. So Julie Andrews Man, what a great answer. Why? Why? Why do we Andrew’s

Julia Phelan  03:21

you know, I think that when I was a kid growing up in England that there were three TV channels and at my house because you know, my dad’s an astrophysicist, my mother’s a teacher. And they you know, I don’t know, erudite, let’s just say that we only were allowed to watch BBC and we weren’t allowed to one ITV which had the commercials on it. So we really only had two channels. And at the time, nothing good was ever on BBC Two. So really, we just had one channel right so every Christmas there would be this magazine in England called the Radio Times even though it was about TV and radio so you’d get the Radio Times and you’d look at it and you could see like all the different films that were on it usually at Christmas time so you know my grandparents would be there and it would be the family you know thing to watch this film and we choose different ones and the Radio Times and like write down so they always have sound of music on at Christmas time. And I did I just sort of evokes that family togetherness Christmas we have the I have the the album you know the soundtrack and and I just thought she was just fantastic. And now I’m learning how to play the guitar so I can be like the very

Curt Anderson  04:39

best answer of all time right there. Now about Hey, good morning guys. We’ve got Whitney in the house here and what does Whitney are alive man let’s let’s get that out. We’ve got Hey, Diane Byers here today. Hello from sunny and she says my sister’s favorite are the These are a few of my favorite things. So hey, great answer, man. And if you grew up in the 70s, of course, you knew Julie Andrews we had the vinyl of The Sound of Music at my house all the time. So what a what a great choice. Great answer. Thank you for making my day jewelry.

Julia Phelan  05:17

So easy. That was an

Curt Anderson  05:19

easy one. So, Damon. So let’s dig in. We have so much to unpack so much to cover. And so guys, again, happy Monday. Thank you for joining us today. drop us a note, let us know that you’re there. You definitely want to connect with Dr. Julia on LinkedIn because she is a powerhouse. Now demon. As I mentioned PhD from UCLA. David, I remember when I applied for my PhD at UCLA. Do you remember how that went?

Julia Phelan  05:41

Yeah. Oh, you shouldn’t read the letter. And they were like,

Curt Anderson  05:45

I misspelled PhD and so they ran Giulia star. So let’s go. We’re just talking to what and I think we’ve got to go there. We have to go there. So you know, Julie, you’ve shared you know, dad, and what was that again? I can’t even pronounce it. What was dad’s career? He’s asked. Yeah, so

Julia Phelan  06:03

rocket scientist. Yeah, yeah.

Curt Anderson  06:07

Yeah, you know, so when like when Julia’s dad be like, Oh, it’s not like he’s a rocket scientist. She was like, oh, yeah, she is. Actually. Yeah. Actually, he was a rocket science. And I think Did you understand? Were you in Houston for a while? Did you tell me that?

Julia Phelan  06:22

Hey, yeah, no, no, we, we were in Maryland for a bit because he was working at the Goddard Space Center. So I live there just for you. At 10. And then But then, and he worked at UC Riverside from boardshorts. Bell, but at the time, he was at Birmingham University in England.

Curt Anderson  06:41

Okay. Absolutely. Like because Whitney’s from Houston. And so I don’t know if you’d like Whitney Houston. I don’t know. I’ve never put that together. I just I just yeah, we I was on I was on a live a couple weeks ago. And I discovered that they call her Whitney Houston. So Whitney, Happy Monday to you, my friend love having you here. So Alright, so let’s go. So dad is a rocket scientist. You decide to come to the States. And we were talking before we went live. And you’ve shared this before, but I didn’t know about the earthquake. So you decided to kind of kick off things. San Francisco is where it’s at? What was Can you can you share your story? 1989? Two years old, right. But can you share your 90 day?

Julia Phelan  07:21

Young Young girl? Yeah. So I’ve moved there. And I was we were supposed to move to San Francisco proper. Me and my boyfriend at the time and some friends and they were doing a hotel training something or other. And we arrived there. And then they said, Oh, that’s that hotels not quite ready, you have to go and live in the East Bay in San Ramon. So I don’t if you know that area, it’s not San Francisco. Particularly then it was this little sort of weird suburb, you know, place where everything was green like this, and it was brown around it where they weren’t watering it. Anyway, we thought, okay, we’ll go there for a couple of months. We’ll do that. And then we’ll move to San Francisco when the hotel is finished. And then so I’m riding my bicycle one day, just in the afternoon, all of a sudden, I think, Oh, I have a flat tire. I turn around. I’m like, No, I don’t have a flat tire and then look up. I’m riding next to the freeway. And I see the freeway signs it just undulating like as if they’re blowing in the wind. And I thought, That’s so weird. Like, how is that happening? And then I get home. And I realized there’s been this giant earthquake, and the whole bridges collapsed and all of that stuff. But then because of that terrible situation, then the hotel was then the completion of the hotel was pushed back. And so then we ended up having to stay in San Ramon the whole time. So it was a little bit of a bait and switch, I’d say for which Oh, no, what do you say here in the suburbs of San Ramon, had a great time. It was fun that it was that it was it was a little different experience. But we would go into San Francisco as often as we could. So I feel like I had as much of that experience as possible.

Curt Anderson  09:04

Awesome. So you know, survive a catastrophic, you know, for those of us old enough to remember that was a doozy. And so you were there for it. You decide to kind of slide down the road a little bit and you UCLA kind of walk us through your journey at UCLA. And when did you flip the switch of like, hey, you know what, I think I’m going to do this PhD thing. What did that look like?

Julia Phelan  09:26

Yes, I went to a community college up in the San Francisco area just for a year because I kept I kept deferring. I was gonna go to university in London, and I kept deferring it and finally my parents said, okay, yeah, what is going on? Like, you can’t be a bartender your whole life. And so you got to live, you’re gonna stay there, that’s fine, but you have to move on to the next phase. So I went to a community college and I didn’t really know what to do and I just sort of showed up there was like, Legally Blonde, I’m like, what’s happening? And and they were saying Do you have a transcript? And I said, Well, I don’t even know what that means. Because we’re in England, that’s not a thing. Is it? Do you have a high school diploma? I said, Well, I finished high school, they didn’t give me anything. There’s no, you know, hoopla about the end of high school in England, maybe there is now but then that wasn’t. So anyway, move through all those steps did a year there. That was great. And then I thought, oh, yeah, I’ll move to LA, I had never been there. So I applied to one school to all these people who apply to some of these schools, I applied to one school. And I thought, okay, so then that ended up working out, went to UCLA did psychology as an undergrad. And then I think I just really, I was working a lot with kids with kids with autism and an Autism Clinic for autistic kids at UCLA. And I did that for a while. And then I thought I really wanted to go and get my PhD in and I actually applied to one job after I graduated from college, which I didn’t get. So I thought, Oh, well, I must be unemployable. So therefore, I should go to graduate school. My one job that I applied to. So then I went to graduate school. And I started out working with some with kids with developmental delays and sort of broadening this idea of working with different, different populations. And I was working my advisor did a lot of work with children with Down syndrome, I was really interested in social emotional capabilities and different populations. And then I think as I was in graduate school, I was in graduate school, I was one of these people who’s in graduate school for 10 years, I started just kind of taking different courses and really just kind of discovering this whole world of learning. And I think I really thought that I didn’t necessarily want to be in that other niche that I had been in and and I took a couple of courses from a guy who did a lot of work studying education in different countries. So looking particularly in math is looking at how is it that I’m speaking generally here that yeah, that that kids in the US aren’t always doing so well, math as kids in some other countries. Why is that? Right? What’s going on? Right? So this guy, this guy at UCLA, his name’s Jim Stigler, he and some other folks were doing some studies aren’t going to they did a lot of studies in Japan and in China and other countries, just looking at you know, how is how is the math being taught? They’re like, what are they doing? And what they really realize, sort of boil it down into little nutshell was that a, I mean, teaching is really well respected there and isn’t a profession that people really want to be in. But also the way that math in particular is taught is very much about, you know, embracing mistakes. And like, and having students really be comfortable and like not knowing and comfortable and sort of figuring things out in a group environment. And being okay was like, Okay, I’m doing something. I don’t know how to do this. And I didn’t know there were lots of different aspects of that. But I got really interested in that idea. And I think he was the person who really kind of lit the spark of thinking about learning and education for me. And then, yeah, I just started working at a research center. While I was in graduate school, I did a lot of teaching and research methods in psychology, and did teaching and life science, which is the area that my husband is in. And so just yeah, that was kind of my journey. And I was I was in graduate school because I had a baby while I was in graduate school. So I was in graduate school for 10 years, which I did not see as a as a failure or anything. Because I think it was, it was such a great experience. I didn’t really want to leave. Finally, again, I was like, Okay, I probably have to be done with this. That’s awesome.

Curt Anderson  13:56

Okay, that was fantastic. So let’s, let’s slide into here. So you have this long industrial, illustrious academic career, which in doing phenomenal work, you could have stayed there forever. You decide to take a leap of faith and entrepreneurship. What triggered? I mean, that was a scary, Was it exciting? Can you walk us through, like, what was the aha moment? And what was that tread transition life?

Julia Phelan  14:23

I don’t know whether I really had an aha moment to be completely honest. I’ve always been the kind of person who has lots of things going on at the same time. So yeah, my friends would always tease me that I’ve got you know, six full time jobs. Yeah. So when I was working at UCLA, yeah, in a serious like, full time job as a research scientist, I always had little things I was doing on the side and I was consulting with this person or I was helping this person do an efficacy study or I was working on other things. And I think over the years you build up these different relationships with people. And then that starts a relationship with some other. Yeah, how that goes. And I think I just started getting more pleasure and enjoyment and fulfillment from that work than than the other stuff I was doing. And not that there was anything inherently wrong with that, but just that I’ve been doing it for a long time. And, you know, I didn’t necessarily want to then move to another university or something like that. And so I just thought, you know, like, mix it up, so why not? So it was an aha moment, but I just sort of, you know, morphed into that. And I thought, you know, I’ve been doing this for a long time. And just like my my mother said, Once, when I was sad that they were moving from my childhood home, she said, Well, when we moved to Asia, we didn’t like sign a, you know, lifelong agreement that we were going to stay here. So now we’re moving. Like that.

Curt Anderson  15:55

Great point. And so in, you know, with academia, it is such a great, you know, it’s a great environment. And you did you thrived and did such amazing work that it would be very easy to stay. And so you took the leap. 2017 Yeah, that’s right. Yeah. Okay, so now let’s dig in. Do you’re the chief learning officer, right? If learning expert, I absolutely love that line. And the name of your company is to 11. The words to to it, love it. Yep. Daymond. Do you have any idea with that references? Julia? Dr. Julia, could you please share? This is absolutely brilliant. Can you please share where the name of your company derived from?

Julia Phelan  16:39

Yeah. So when I was when we were trying to think about the name of the company that I started with someone else, Ellen clock, we wanted to have something that would evoke sort of above and beyond or Vogue that it was going to be great, right? And so there’s a movie that you may have seen called this a spinal tap, and it’s all about it’s fake. rockumentary, I think is probably the name of it. And it follows along this band, and there’s a scene in it, where you sort of have to see it. I don’t really ever do it justice, talk about it. But but they’re talking about the guys being interviewed. And he’s talking about this, the speakers that he has, and he’s talking about when I can turn this up to a lover and the guy’s like, Well, why don’t you just make 10 Louder. This like, kind of looks like one of these go to 11. And it’s it’s just this like, it’s silly, really just this, but it’s like above and beyond is the way I see that. So that’s that was the motivation for our name.

Curt Anderson  17:43

So I was gonna pull the clip, but I know we we’ve got to cover. So Damon, if you get a chance, guys, you want to go to Julia’s website. It’s 211 and NERT. She actually has the clip of spinal tap explaining the whole 1011. And it is, it is just hysterical. Kudos to you for coming up with such a brilliant, such a creative name that is so fitting for your business. So let’s go there, Julius, and you’re talking about like, hey, we want to go over and above beyond. We want to take it we don’t want to stop at 10. We want to take it to 11. Let’s go there. Yeah, that’s super powers, how you make the world a better place. What a chief learning officer, I just I’ve learned so much from you. Can you please just enlighten our folks? What do you do at 211? Yeah,

Julia Phelan  18:30

so I would describe my work as I’m an learning engineer. So if you think about someone who, let’s say you’re thinking about building a bridge, so you got someone that they want to build a bridge, and they they’re in a computer simulation, or maybe they’re in a room and they’re building a model, and they know all of these sort of physical principles and things that they need to know how to build this bridge or design a bridge, let’s say. So they do that, they have to then find somebody to build it for them. Okay, they do that. And then they Off they go, they build the bridge probably takes a while to build a bridge. And then the things all of the things that are in the environment around that have the potential to make this a successful or not successful bridge, right. So there was there was a famous bridge up in what’s called the Tacoma Narrows Bridge, you may know it, yes. So they built this bridge, they didn’t pay attention to these principles that were necessary to address wind in this area. And this bridge failed about four months after it was it was built. And so the big failure that lots of people make when they design living experiences is they don’t consider the context right. So they’ll consider like, Okay, I know how to build a bridge. I’ve got people who can build it for me, but I need to make sure that I’m building the bridge for this particular environment that I’m going to be in so that particular environment was really, really windy, and they didn’t pay attention to the principles they needed to pay attention to, to deal with this wind. So similarly, you know, if you think, okay, I know how to teach adding fractions to someone, right? So you might have that expertise. But you also need to think about how do I teach adding fractions to someone who thinks they can’t do math? Right? How do I teach cooking a souffle to someone who is a guy and thinks that cooking is for girls? Or, you know, how do I teach compliance with workplace harassment, you know, rules and regulations and practices to a bunch of high school kids who’ve just graduated from high school who are working as like supermarket clerks or something, right? So like thinking about what is the context in which you are teaching someone something is really an important point. And it’s probably I would say, the biggest mistake that people make is that they don’t consider that. And obviously, when you’re talking about people and learning environments, you’re not just talking about wind and weather and temperature here, you’re thinking about all these other things, right? But every every learner that comes into a learning environment, whatever it is, yeah, then there’s learning environments, everywhere, right? Everywhere you look, you’re learning something or taking something in that everyone is bringing different emotional states, different experiences, different, you know, prior knowledge, different home dynamics, I mean, you name it, different motivations. So everyone is bringing all these different things to the table. And ultimately, learning stuff is hard, right? It’s learning is hard. That’s my mantra. And it takes time. And so it’s already really tough. It’s like, it’s already really tough to build a bridge. But now you’re gonna build a bridge where it’s really windy, that’s even harder, right? But if you think about it ahead of time, then you can sort of address some of these issues and challenges that say your bridge doesn’t collapse like that poor bridge up in Tacoma. So that’s what I do is really help people think about what is the context in which you’re learning? And how can we apply these principles in different ways. And if we think back to that music analogy, you know, the 211 sound mixing board, I see it like that, if any learning experience, you could say, Okay, I know that now I could have all these little levers here that I’ve got to move up and down, and I could say, Okay, well, in this particular environment, for this particular group, I’m gonna have to increase my, you know, helping them to see that I’m on this side, or I mainly increase this or decrease this a little bit. And so it’s just all about being flexible, and really thinking about what is the context in which people are learning? And how can you sort of pay attention to and maximize that for the most efficient learning that you can get? All right,

Curt Anderson  23:03

that is fantastic. Go ahead, Damon.

Damon Pistulka  23:06

No, I mean, it is just as you said, you know, you can just your example of teaching cooking to a young person that a young man that doesn’t really want to learn how to cook or so many situations in business where we have mandatory training, or we have a job skill, critical training. And we might have, now when you mix a diverse environment of people in there, how do you really do that? I mean, there’s, there’s some drill challenges to it.

Julia Phelan  23:36

Yeah, absolutely. And you can have, and what’s really interesting, right, you could have, you could be in a learning environment, you could have two people, let’s say, both with the same blank stare on their face. Yeah, we’re both looking at you like, and you have no idea one of the guys is thinking, Oh, last time I was in a situation like this, it was really nerve racking because the guy called on me and I didn’t know what to say. And I was really nervous. And I’m really afraid that they’re going to call him in this. That’s what that’s what’s going on in that person’s head. The other person’s thinking like, oh, yeah, my girlfriend just broke up with me. And I, you know, I don’t know what to do. And yeah, and they’re just distracted by that. But you as the educator or the trainer, you have no idea, right? What’s happening there. And so it’s really about just, I mean, a lot of times it’s just about having an awareness that you don’t really know what what is happening. And so you have to just be thinking as much as you can about ways to help people sort of overcome some of those obstacles to learning. Because, you know, at the end of the day, learning is hard. We’ve only got so much room in our working memory to take in new stuff. And if our working memory is all jammed up with my worrying, if you like me or worrying that this is a thing is happening, then doesn’t matter how great your training is where your course or whatever it is, I’m not going to be able to learn anything because I can’t even get there. Right?

Curt Anderson  25:06

Right. Well, and this totally hits home for us, Damon, you know, speaking to manufacturers, because you know, manufacturer might be like, hey, wait a minute, what does education have to do with me? Everything, you know, when you’re onboarding a client, for the first time somebody sends you a CAD drawing, somebody sends you a request for quote, like, how do you start that process, and again, like, they’re coming to you as a subject matter expert, you know, they might know like, their piece of machinery, but you’re the expert on a piece of that piece of machinery, and you have the opportunity to be the better teacher, same thing. Boy, it’s been a little bit of a supply, you know, supply challenge. While it’s been supply chain challenges and labor shortages, as you’re onboarding new folks, if they are intimidated or overwhelmed, man, they are not coming back to the office the next day. So Juliette, let’s go there. If Are you ready? You guys, everybody sit down? You’re ready for this one? Damon? Let’s do it. back from vacation, like we’re just we’re throwing like PhD level material, right at the poor guy. Yeah. Well, for me, it’s. So David, I’m glad you had like 10 cups of coffee, because you need to write your writing. So okay, Julie, you have like three buckets that we’re going to talk about on how to help those examples. And so let’s, let’s go there right now. Yeah. So,

Julia Phelan  26:23

I mean, obviously, there’s a million buckets that you can think about. But for me, when I think about, we’re designing a learning experience of any kind. And again, it could be you’re figuring out how to approach some new sales call or something like that, you know, there’s a million ways that we can apply teaching and learning to the world of business, right. But when we think about learning, we’ve got to think about where people are gonna learn better when they feel connected, they feel a sense of trust, they feel that they belong, they feel like the person understands them, they don’t feel like an other, right, all of those things. And again, there’s all sorts of ways that you can address that. But that’s really the first thing is that you need to meet and all of these things that I’m going to talk about, really serve this bigger picture element of cannot have too much stuff coming into your head or have your head jammed up with other things, because then you can’t learn, right? I mean, that’s right. It’s really simple, right? So you got to make sure that people feel trust, they feel connected, they feel belonging, and all of those things. And whatever you want someone to do, or if you have a particular goal, but all of the your you need to know where you want to go, right. And that has to be very clearly articulated. So if you’re teaching someone something, that it’s really important that they know, where you’re where they’re where they’re trying to go, right. So what is that? What is that goal? What is that expectation that is clearly articulated. And this is really important that it feels achievable to them? Like if I say, okay, Kurt, tomorrow, I want you to go out, and I want you to do a seven foot high jump? Well, again, I don’t know, maybe you are a champion high jumper. But if you’re not, then that’s possibly not an achievable goal for you. Right? So then Are you motivated to do that? Probably not. And so any of these goals that you have, they have to be articulated, they have to be achievable, right does have to be easy, it has to be achievable. And they also have to have, you know, folks need opportunities to practice to learn to apply and to receive feedback, right? So we cannot ever improve anything if we don’t get feedback. So you think about someone who plays golf, like my parents played golf every single weekend, maybe not so much now, but they did. And you’d think, Okay, well, when people talk about oh, 10,000 hours of practice, right? If you practice for 10,000 hours, you’re going to be an expert. Yep. Well, no, not necessarily. Because if if my parents go out and play golf at 10,000 hours over the course of however many years, if, if they’re not getting any kind of input, any kind of feedback as to stuff that they’re doing right, or stuff that they’re doing wrong, then possibly they are just reinforcing some really terrible habits, right, and some really terrible practices. So it’s really important to have an any kind of learning experience, some other person who can help guide and give you some coaching or some feedback on okay, you’re doing really great. This is working well. But here we are doing this, this is something that needs to needs to shift. And here’s how you do that. And let’s give you some time to try that. And then kind of let’s revisit, right, but without that input, nobody is ever going to become an expert in anything because you’re just potentially going to be going down a wrong road that you’re just reinforcing. So that is a really important component of any kind of learning experience. And you know, we’ve talked a little bit I think before back Trust. And when you have a situation which you have to give somebody feedback, sometimes the feedback is not going to be positive, right could be some sort of constructive, potentially negative feedback. And that’s a situation where again, if you want the person who’s receiving the feedback, to be open to it, to be able to receive it, with the intent that hopefully you’re giving it, they need to, they need to trust you. And they need to know that you believe in them that you believe they can do something, you’re on their side, all of those things, right. And if you set up that environment, which goes back to principle number one, then now if you’re if you’re now giving somebody some feedback, and then likely to feel that it’s coming from from a place of good intention, versus a place of critique or hurt, thanks, I can’t do this, I could thinks I’m an idiot, and I don’t know how to do it. And now I feel bad about myself. But if I feel that you, you believe that I could do it, and that you have this expectation that I’m so much more likely to be able to receive that kind of feedback. So that’s the second thing. And then the third thing is really that again, going back to learning is hard. But anytime you’re learning something you need to figure out like a really important component of it is what do you already know? Right? So somebody will say to me, well, what’s the best way to teach someone how to change a tire, let’s say? And so, or I might look at Damon and I might say, Okay, what kind of car should Damon buys? He’s in the market for a new car, right? Well, I can’t answer either of those two things, unless I know a little bit more about the situation in the context, right? So you have to say it depends. I don’t know, if Damon has got six kids and three dogs, in which case, he needs a giant van. Or maybe he lives on his own. And he just needs something wonderful. I don’t know, right. And similarly, if someone says, Yes, you know, someone needs to change a tire, if they already know generally how to do it, they’ve done it before, then I might be able to give them a quick refresher versus someone who’s never done it before, who doesn’t even know the names of any of the tools. Now I’ve got to start way down there. Right. So where I begin right on this journey of teaching somebody something is really dependent on what they already know. So you have to make sure that you’re a taking that into account right there, what’s in their head, their prior knowledge and their experience. And also then spacing stuff out over time, like I can’t jam it all in at once. Because again, you just gotta get overwhelmed and like, you’ll max out and everything I say after that is out. And again, giving the sort of scaffolds and support and then feeding that away as people are learning. So another big, I think mistake that people make in learning situations is that they think oh, Julia said that we should always do this. So I would never say that, I would say, well, you should do that maybe to begin with and then you could fade that away, oh, this might be a good practice to do with somebody who doesn’t know this. But once they have it now, that’s actually going to be counterproductive, to if if you begin every piece of instruction with Okay, now let’s cover what the tools are. Dan was like, Ah, I already know what the tools are like, he knows how to use this new cool tool, like I don’t need all the other stuff, right. So it’s just about figuring out how to meet people where they are. And I think that the an element of that too, is when we have expertise. So when people have developed expertise over many, many years, it’s sometimes difficult for them to put themselves in the mindset of a novice or put themselves in that in that in that space, because they sort of forget that they were ever in it themselves. And they forget what it felt like it says, we call that the expert blind spots. So I get that, that someone doesn’t know something. And I immediately jump way too far ahead. And I have been these unrealistic expectations of them because I think I’ll come on how hard is it for you to do? And well guess what? It is hard, right? Because I never did it before. Yeah. So it’s, I think about this one I call your insurance, health insurance like hotline or something, you know, when they start using all these words that I don’t know, and they’re like, Oh, what do you have an HMO or PPO? And yeah, there’s we have that and and, and because for them, they talk about that stuff. 24/7 every day. I talk about it, you know, once every two years, it’s I don’t know what they’re talking about. And so they’re not they’re not modeling my world. So that’s a really important piece too, is just modeling the world of the person that you’re that you’re talking to, that you’re teaching something to and making sure that you are not using terms and using words that aren’t that That acronyms and stuff that again, that also falls right back to feeling like you belong and feeling you know that that sense of connectedness because if if someone starts using terms that you don’t know, then you just kind of switch off from that.

Damon Pistulka  35:18

And so much good.

Curt Anderson  35:21

So mine taken note, you know, that kind of you know, that reminds me of, you know, like remember being at Grandma’s house on a Sunday afternoon, just like that home cooked meal. And

Julia Phelan  35:32

that was like, music’s playing on the bed

Curt Anderson  35:35

was like a home cooked meal. A grandma’s right there. Man. That was so good. And Julia, by the way, I hate to brag, but Anders says, Hey, I heard Kurt can jump eight feet. Oh, how’s that? You know, Anders, thank you for having my back on that one, dude. I didn’t know Right. You know, I hate to bring you know, I I don’t know if I could jump like six inches right now. But anyway.

Julia Phelan  35:59

Well, you could show a video of you doing that.

Curt Anderson  36:01

That’s a whole nother story. You know what I Damon you probably more so. So. Okay, so just let’s, let’s recap that. You know, what, enough about Julia? Lets you know, hey, Julia pluggers. Okay, David, let me just share some things that clients say like you’re just you’re getting a little sliver. A little taste. Yeah. And when I love like, you know, manufacturers, you know, they’re so busy. Hey, we need a body. We need to get somebody on the line. And we need to get this going fast. And I’ve and I know Damon, you’ve probably seen it. I’ve seen it. I’ve been guilty of this. We’re like, come on, we’re hurt. You know, we’re behind the Turi Yes. And we don’t, you know, enjoy what you said was, you know, being welcoming, inviting greeting, making them feel warm and comfortable. You talk about clear, concise, manageable and achievable goals, and then meet them where they’re at, like they need, you know, what’s the time, it might take time, it might take Damon five minutes to do what it takes me like five hours. Right? So that’s how smart Damon is. But, David, can I share a couple things about Julian real quick, Julian? Jamie, grab a book, grab a snack, you know, you know, here’s a couple of quotes. Working with Julia is nothing short of phenomenal. Best I’ve encountered. Julia and Ellen are the Dream Team. Terrific learning engineers, I am speechless. And for me, that’s a big deal. That was a quote that’s that I found. Your sessions were amazing. You are so incredible professional fund experts. Why is it that it’s you know, it sounds like when you’re resonating with folks and like you really you’re intentional on helping folks to learn how to learn. For those of us that take for granted what’s what are, you know, like? So you took us through that three step process? sounds super easy. Is there another tip or an advice? Ran a busy shop floor to manufacture? How can we just stop and slow down to like, really embrace that person? Is there anything that you could advise there?

Julia Phelan  38:05

I think that it’s really about about going back to what I said at the very beginning about that context idea, right. And thinking about all of the things that can make up the the context in which someone is doing something is really, really important. So you know, and people talk a lot these days about, you know, making assumptions and that type of thing and not making decisions decisions too quickly. But it’s really again, that it’s that’s sort of general a general question, right? But thinking about, if you want someone to either be doing something or learning something, or whatever it is, you have to be not thinking about it from necessarily your own perspective and how you would see it and how you would do it. But what is what is what are they thinking about? Like, it’s all it’s really about them? And how can you you, it’s like you’re working with them, right? You’re working. So you’ve got the back to the bridge ID you’ve got the bridge designer and the bridge builder, but they can’t do it on their own, like knowing how is not enough. You need someone to figure out how do you do something in this environment? That’s, that’s really I think, to me, the big picture, and the thing that can get in the way of things succeeding is that it’s there’s not enough attention paid to that. And I think a lot of times and could you and I have talked about this, that it comes down to sometimes this idea that the whole sort of area discipline of Teaching and Learning doesn’t tend to get as much play in the world as I believe it should. Yeah, and so we give a lot of you know, respect to subject matter expertise, which absolutely is awesome and you know, deserve but we don’t always then give as much that to the idea that okay, if you’re an expert in something, how does that mean that you’d be a good teacher of that? And we know that that’s not true, right? And so because there’s a whole other sort of arm that comes in, and a whole other skill set, that sometimes it feels like, oh, well, you know, sometimes a good teacher or someone says, we are really good at that, well, nobody’s really good at anything, without trying really hard and practicing, like, nobody rolls out of bed, a good teacher, just like nobody rolls out of bed, good figure skater or something, right? It’s hours and hours and hours of practice. And so I think when we can understand that, and you talk about your being in a work context on the shop floor or something, just understanding that it’s going to take somebody a long time to get to the point of expertise that you’re out, perhaps right. And so just to just acknowledge that and appreciate the small wins. And again, it’s about setting those achievable goals and making sure that they’re moving along that pathway, but not having too much. I don’t know impatience that things aren’t going as quickly as possible, because it’s really easy. When you’re on the other side of that. We call it you know, this unconscious competence, right? You’re not even aware of much that, you know, and really trying to slow yourself down and think about that.

Curt Anderson  41:25

Yeah, all right. That was fantastic. unconscious competence. Is that what you said unconscious competence. It’s like Damon, our friend, Wesleyan, she just, you know, the example like if somebody came down on the planet, and you had to describe how you start your car and how you drive to work, like you just kind of just do it. And like, if you you know, how, there’s a great video on how to make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. Who for someone that has never heard of peanut butter, jelly, you know, like that unconscious competence is absolutely brilliant. Joe, you talked about designed the learning experience to make it easier to point out the winds I loved and you just mentioned that. And you also mentioned understanding the why to help them understand the what can you, man, I David? I 45 minutes is just flown by? Yeah, no, I don’t I know, we’re coming into time, Julie. But yeah, well, why in the what, David, please.

Damon Pistulka  42:13

I think this is this is the key. I mean, it’s one of the keys, right? Because nobody’s going to learn anything because of what you said, it takes time. And it’s hard. Unless they really want to do it. You can’t force it on people, right? So when you talk about the why when people can say, Why am I going through this safety training, well, we don’t want you to fall down and break your leg or something like that, that’s, or whatever it is, or because this allows you this training allows you to move to the next level in our in our business, and we’re developing people and you can see, then they will want if they want to develop they’ll do that. It’s just so key.

Julia Phelan  42:52

Again, and that and that aspect is all about the value right to the to the particular person. So yeah, you said, and again, this is where everyone is going to have a different thing that gets them fired up. But just because for some people, they’re okay with, okay, I know, I have to get through this math class, because it’s going to get me to the next level of this other thing. So even though I’m not super jazzed about this math class, that’s okay. You know, because it’s gonna get me that somebody else may have a different motivation for doing it. But again, it’s about helping people see the value. And I think when you think about the why it can be, I had a tree outside of my garden, it was like this ugly, ugly tree, and I wanted to cut it down. And so I, I had a guy comedy, mostly cut it down, but the base of the tree was still there, right? And then all these little leaves started popping up. And I have a friend who’s literally like a plant, tree scientist, and he came out. And I said, I’m just so mad about this tree and everything. And my guys waiting for the roots to die. So you can get get it out. And he looks at it. And he says, well, it’s never gonna die. And I said, What do you mean? And he said, because it’s growing little green leaves. And I already know this, like, sort of from a basic level that that’s how plants make food, right? They’ve got little green leaves. And that’s photosynthesis. And that’s how they make their food. So he said, unless you take all of those leaves off, and every time a new one comes, you take it out, take it out, that tree will never die, right? But it took him to sort of bring those two things together for me that even I know that like I know what photosynthesis is. I hadn’t made the connection like oh, if I see leaves, my this route of this tree is going to be there forever. Right? So it’s about helping me see why is that happening? And now I’d be you know, more motivated to pick out those little leaves. Right? Right.

44:46

Okay

Curt Anderson  44:51

guys, I just feel smarter hanging out with Julia. I didn’t think that was humanly possible, Damon, you know, because I’m, you know, you know, my deficit but anyway, I just feel You’re so much smarter when I hang out with Julia. Julia, I bought to be mindful of your time we’re gonna start winding down. If I were Damon, are you? Are you a visual learner? Or like, how was it easier?

Damon Pistulka  45:11

I don’t even know you.

Curt Anderson  45:14

I usually, I learned by

Damon Pistulka  45:17

getting hit in the head a few times by

Curt Anderson  45:20

making mistakes over and over over right? Julia and I were like, like a man I’m I’m I’m more of a visual learner versus a such and such learner, can you is What crosses your mind when I share that with you?

Julia Phelan  45:35

It makes me furious. So I’ll say this really fast, because I know we don’t have a ton of time. But so that was a theory that was very popular for a long time many years ago. And over the last, I don’t know how many years, there’s been all sorts of research trying to figure out, you know, is that even really a thing? Right? And so there was no evidence that that’s a thing. And what you should think about when we think about people saying that is what I said about your learning is depending on prior knowledge, right? And so if you are you, let’s say you’re trying to find an ice cream store in the town, right? So you’ve got a guy who comes up to you and doesn’t speak English at all, but he’s got a little picture of an ice cream, you’re like, Okay, I think I know what he wants. The only way that you’re going to help him get there is you could draw a little map for him, right? And be like, Hey, Church here, tree here today, and you could show it. So that’s fine. Now the guy comes up to you. He’s not from your town, but he does speak English. And now you can say, Okay, you have to go to the church is Crossman a 711 Turn left at the target. And so across from this such as, right, so you can just say that. And describe a couple of landmarks. Now another dude comes up to you. And now this is a guy that you grew up with in your town, right? He says, hey, could I heard there’s a new ice cream store in town? You’re like, oh, yeah, yeah, it’s right behind the, you know, Boy Scout hut where you had your first set. So the goal is exactly the same, right? The goal is you want the person to find the ice cream store. The guy who you drew the map for as long as he’s a visual learner is because that is where he is like, that’s the only way you can that’s his prior knowledge and his way that you can communicate. And so I think it’s we all have preferences, and we all have differences, just like I have more heavily you do, right? But little it, when we when we, when we sort of perpetuate that idea, it really leads to some counterproductive things. And we know a ton about what works and learning. And that’s not one of the things. And so if we, if we sort of keep going with that idea, we start to be like, okay, the only way I can teach Damon how to do math is buying a baking a cake. Well, it’s in the shape of a thing, and it just starts to get just down a road that is not conducive to what we do know about principles and practices about learning. And so what I would say is, it’s like, though, not to the same, obviously, severity, but it’s like climate change, you know, if somebody doesn’t believe that climate change is a thing, then they’re less likely to support, you know, policies, policies and principles that will lead to hopefully remedying that to some degree, right. And similarly, if, if folks are really trying to perpetuate this idea of learning styles and all of that, then you’re likely to have people putting resources and time and efforts into doing things that are just not going to be as productive as they could be. Because we do know what works and learning and that’s okay. And there’s differences and there’s preferences, and all of that, and everyone’s coming from retirement perspective. But that doesn’t mean that everyone has a style of learning. That’s best for them.

Curt Anderson  48:53

Man, Damon, was that How about like, that was like the eighth drop the mic moment, right. So that I just want I just want to savor that for one. Yeah, I just absolutely love that. So Julia, so anybody out there as you were you’re trying to learn is you need to meet the person where they’re at. Take them through that process, take them be welcoming. Layout, achievable goals, meet them where they’re at, and take time,

Julia Phelan  49:27

like, appreciate that there’s that things take time. And I think you know, these days where we’re so bombarded with videos and things, you know, that show like, Oh, here’s a sped up video of somebody doing some cool, I don’t know, cooking demonstration or something. And it or odd, right? It looks so easy. And the more you watch that you’re like, wow, I can do that. And then I try it and I cannot. And so I think it’s just making sure that we really hold on to that appreciation that it’s It does take time and effort to develop expertise but it’s worth it right but but they are not learning how to do anything by watching a YouTube video for 10 seconds. Yeah. That that. So I think it’s just another thing to keep in mind. So then when you are on the other side of it, that you’re giving folks the space in the room to learn and grow at a pace that makes sense without being too late. Just because you’re there doesn’t mean that they’re going to get there overnight.

Curt Anderson  50:29

I love that in another tagline evidence based principles to develop, to develop and improve your learning experiences. And for anybody out there, you know whether you’re a solopreneur, solo marketer, manufacturer, wherever you’re at, Boy, these tactics these strategies are just are virtually applicable in everything you do. They really are. And Daymond. As you can tell, when I’m on a call with Julia jewel, I’ve got my little notebook right here. Julie, remember our first phone call? First call, I’m sitting there and like I had like pages of notes. And it’s just like, it’s just when Dr. Julia is in the house, tons of learning opportunities. Now Julie, you and I had the honor and privilege we actually met in person we got together so Daymond we’re part of a little mastermind group together and I’m not sure how on earth I got into this group with with folks like Julia, but I did I snuck in. And I got the privilege of sitting with Julia at dinner and I can we became fast friends hit it off immediately because like our music isn’t in alignment. We’re geeking out about music. And we were ordering together and we’re trying to figure out what to order from this restaurant. Now, Julia before we wind down I would be I would I’d be really regretful if we didn’t talk about there’s a conspiracy out there that I believe it’s real. The real food conspiracy. I know you know you and I don’t get very vocal, opinionated, political. We’re gonna get a little political. Are you ready?

Damon Pistulka  51:58

There we go. Let’s do it.

Curt Anderson  52:00

Julia, can you please share with the folks this this awful conspiracy this full conspiracy that’s going on?

Julia Phelan  52:06

Well, so you go to a restaurant you see a salad on the menu. It says it’s got you know, 10 things in it. It’s got tomatoes. It’s got cheese. It’s got carrots. It’s got you know, I don’t know, what are the ingredients croutons, sunflower seeds, salt and pepper, whatever. So you think, Okay, sounds delicious.

Curt Anderson  52:26

You feel great? Right? You feel safe?

Julia Phelan  52:29

Because there’s a really nice list of ingredients. And it seems pretty exhaustive. You get the salad. So not mentioned anywhere on the description is onions. I hate onions. So you get the salad. And there’s this giant mound of onions. And so the conspiracy really is that somewhere along the way, somebody has decided that the onion is a benign ingredient that doesn’t even deserve a mention on the on the menu because obviously everybody would love a pile of wrong on their salad. So then every time I order something I have to like grill the person like and they’ll say, Well, no, it’s not listed. I say what I know. But the conspiracy is that. I mean lobby is like sneaking them in. Without without mention. So yes, it’s very upsetting is what it is.

Curt Anderson  53:27

So the running joke if if my wife were here for past 30 years, she has put up and we’re married 25 years in a couple of weeks Damon I think first thing is matter of fact. She could tell you firsthand like like I’ve been complaining about the onion conspiracy. My daughter, like anytime we got em like I’ve been fighting this for years. I’m like, It’s nowhere on the menu. Why are onions on this plate right now? I don’t understand. I sit next to Julia. And we discovered we had to like we have this this soul brother soul sister bond that cannot be broken. And I’m sorry for anybody out there. It’s part of the onion lobby. But we have a little bone to pick with you a little. So Julia, thank you for bringing this this really devastating problem to

Julia Phelan  54:12

light. An important issue that rest until it’s

Damon Pistulka  54:18

well if you if you want more about the onion lobby just read a little bit about McDonald’s changing their hamburgers recently. There’s a whole thing about that there’s a whole thing and it’s specifically around onions.

Curt Anderson  54:31

Okay, I’ll find it. Yeah, we’ll have to check it out. But that it was funny that Julie and I we had man I had that little add to the theory. We will add it’s out there. So we’re Hey, that’s our mission in life theme and that’s my new purpose. Yeah, all right, Julius, we’re winding down. My last very last question for you. So Julie Andrews is your hero. You are just a chief learning engineer. I like call your chief learning officer. You’re just absolutely crushing it. Love the name your company. A you and Elena are just doing amazing work helping companies and Daymond we could have her back on and just some of the specific work that she’s doing is very powerful. So Juliette, my last question for you today? Who is your inspiration moving forward for the year? Who? Or what is your inspiration? You are driven, you have all sorts of goals. You and I are in this big, aggressive group together? Who are what is your inspiration moving forward for the year? Ah, gosh.

Julia Phelan  55:35

My inspiration, I’m gonna say it’s probably a lot, not a who, but um, you know, I think, I don’t know if this is an inspiration or motivation, but I’m gonna say it anyway that I mentioned earlier that I’m playing, I’m learning how to play guitar. Yeah. And I think what is really inspiring to me at the moment is that it really hammers home to me that it’s really, really hard to learn new things. And it’s really important to practice. And so I’ve been facing that with some humility that, you know, I have my teacher and she’s amazing. And she makes it look easy. And every single like, every two weeks, but every couple of weeks I’m confronted with Yeah, this is hard. So I think that that keeps that real for me in my mind that you know, it’s been I mean, I’ve been doing it for almost a year and I think I can play two chords

Curt Anderson  56:33

you’re being you know, Damon, it’s like Eric Clapton listening to Julia so

Julia Phelan  56:41

that’s inspiring me to to keep keep at it.

Curt Anderson  56:45

So learning and taking on new challenges, humility, great answer. Absolutely. Love that. So we will close out Juliet work and friends, family fans, where can people find and connect with you?

Julia Phelan  56:56

LinkedIn is a great place to connect with me. So yeah, absolutely. I’d love to. I’d love to hear from anyone or yeah, my website again. LinkedIn is great.

Curt Anderson  57:06

Awesome. Okay, Damon, welcome back, brother. We were great day right in a blockbuster for you. Yeah. Great day, guys. Thank you. And you know what, for everybody out there, thank you for joining us. And if you’ve been sitting for the past, man, I do I told you 45 minutes and 57 it looks like right now. If you’ve been sitting for the past 57 minutes and it’s a perfect time to stretch. Stand up. And how about we give a huge standing ovation for Dr. Julia for just absolutely crushing it today. And just enlightening us I just feel that much smarter Damon. So Julia thank you I pray Thank you. You are such a dear friend. I feel so blessed that our paths have crossed I’m so grateful that you and I sat next to dinner to each other discovered this little onion problem that we’re going to solve so

Julia Phelan  57:55

100% and it’s great to meet you Damon.

Curt Anderson  58:00

Damon any parting thoughts for Julia for our crowd today?

Damon Pistulka  58:04

No, I just go back and listen to replay man I literally have over a page of notes in here and stuff good stuff.

Curt Anderson  58:11

When Julian’s in the house man look at your pages. Julia so this one right here gold So Julia Thank you. We appreciate you and just what an honor hang out with us for one second. Guys go out have an absolute incredible amazing week. And just like Dr. Julia here be someone’s inspiration man. Just have a great week. We’ve got a great program Friday Damon. How have a great day. Thanks, everyone.