Showdown at the Santa Fe Institute; Learning the value of drawing your ideas.

Vance Crowe [00:00:00] And he says, Vance, why don't you have a seat over there, but before you sit down, what are you doing here? That's what he said to me. This is a Vance Cool podcast bonus episode. Welcome back to another bonus episode of the podcast. After last week, I received so much positive feedback through direct messages and tweets and emails about how much you liked the bonus episode. That at first I felt euphoric. I was so excited, but then all of a sudden I started to feel the pressure and the weight of delivering on the commitment that I made at the end of that podcast, which is to encapsulate ideas that will help you become a tangibly better communicator. And so I spent all week thinking about this, and I realized that there's one skill that if you develop, it will change everything about the way your audience interacts with you. It's a skill that is so simple that it's shocking. It was never taught in high school or college, but it wasn't. And you see people in corporate environments that if they would just start using this skill, they would be a lot more effective. And once I tell you this skill, you're gonna see, wait a second, there are some people that use this all the time, and they are better communicators. And, and you start to see that they've had this superpowers, almost like a magic trick that has helped them be way more persuasive to get people to really understand their ideas and generally get behind them, or at least make them better.

Vance Crowe [00:01:44] And that skill is learning how to draw your ideas. Now, I have drawn my ideas for the last few years, but I never really knew how powerful it was until I was at this place called the Santa Fe Institute overlooking the city of Santa Fe in New Mexico. Now, the Santa Fe Institute is a think tank. It's considered one of the best think tanks in the entire world, and it studies things like complexity. It's a, it's a sort of monastery to mathematics and science. And I had read this book given to me by my buddy Rob Long called Surfing the Edge of Chaos. And in the book, they described how the CEO of Monsanto took a sabbatical to the Santa Fe Institute. And it was so profound and impactful on him that when he came back to the company and he started heading up this merger that was going on, he reorganized the company so effectively and did so many interesting things there, that that was how biotech resulted. Now, I don't know whether or not that is a true story, if that's actually the accurate way that, that it happened. In fact, one time I shared the book with Dr. Rob freely, the chief technology officer of Monsanto, and he got done with the book and said, no, that's not the way it happened. So I don't actually know, I don't want to overhype this. This is an amazing think tank, but maybe the book is right and maybe they're not.

Vance Crowe [00:03:17] But any case, I had read this book and I became enthralled with the Santa Fe Institute. I began to think maybe if I got in there and I had a chance to talk with some of their experts, some of these people that are studying network theory, how do ideas move across cultures? How do, how do ideas spread out to become culture? Maybe if I had a chance to talk with these people, they could help me in my mission, which at the time because I was working for Monsanto, was helping figure out how do you make it so that the society that has been made to feel afraid and even angry about how their food is being grown by using genetic engineering and pesticides, how can you change how they feel about it? I had come to the conclusion that I thought genetic engineering was a really important component of agriculture, and I wanted other people to know it. So I was thinking all the time about how do you make your ideas spread faster than the photos of tomatoes with syringes in them? And when I found out about the Santa Fe Institute, I was like, aha, I could go there and I could tell them about this hypothesis that I've created called the Well Actually Graph. And I could, I could show them this graph and tell them about my plans to change culture and how it's working out, and they could make the ideas better. Or you know, maybe they could tell me, these are terrible ideas, you should do something else. So I was incredibly enthusiastic about going to this place, and I figured out a way to couple it with another trip I was making to New Mexico.

Vance Crowe [00:04:58] And so on my way there, a a few months out, I wrote them an email and said, Hey, I'm this guy from Monsanto, and I read this book called Surfing the Edge of Chaos, and I would love to come and meet some of your experts. In particular, I wanted to meet this man named Jeffrey West. He is a fascinating theoretical physicist that I thought could really help me out. And so I had it in my mind that I wanted to go to the Santa Fe Institute, and I wanted to meet Jeffrey West. And I remember as I'm driving up the mountain to get to this monastery of deep thought that I was so excited, I, I was beaming with excitement. I was finally getting to this place where there would be scholars and people that could take my ideas and make them better. And I was really interested in doing this. And so I'm driving up the winding road and I get there and it is everything that I imagined it could be. It is this adobe compound overlooking these giant vistas over the desert, and it's cool and breezy, and they don't have air conditioning because the temperate climate is so amazing that you can just leave the windows open and the breeze will allow air to go into the courtyard. And then when I walk in through the entrance, you can see people sitting in the courtyard working on their computers. You could see people standing at chalkboards writing equations on the walls and communicating with their colleagues. This was everything that I had dreamed it could be.

Vance Crowe [00:06:29] And probably more when a woman came out of an area, she had seen me walk in and she, she also had a big smile on her face and said, welcome to the Santa Fe Institute, can I help you? And I said, yeah, sure. My name is Vance Crowe and I have a tour arranged. I'm probably a little bit early, right? I have my, my eyebrows are probably sticking way up. I am excited. And so she goes to this little book that she had on on, I'm sure, just a scheduler. And as soon as she looks it up, you can see her running her finger down the names. As soon as she gets to Vance Crowe, her smile fades away. And she looks back up at me and says, yes, we have a tour scheduled for you, but we first would like you to meet with David Krakauer, our president. He's not in his office yet, but let me show you there. So she shows me into his office and she kind of waits in the doorway kind of hovering, and I'm just standing in this office. It's got couches, it's got a chalkboard, it's got a standing desk over in the, over in the corner. It's a great big office. He's the president of one of the greatest think tanks in the world. And I am now left with this really weird feeling because on the one hand, I'm kind of excited, right? The president of the Santa Fe Institute wants to meet with me. But on the other hand, it would not take a body language expert to realize that this woman is communicating to me that this is not necessarily going to be a pleasant conversation.

Vance Crowe [00:08:05] And so we wait there, she kind of mills in the door, and then a few minutes later, David Krakauer comes walking in the door, and he acknowledges me and says, hello. But he kind of motions that he has a few things he needs to take care of before he can give his attention to me. So he walks over to his desk, sets everything down, gets on his computer, starts typing in, you know, I'm not the first thing on his mind, but once he gets a few things done, he looks up at me and he looks straight at me and he says, Vance, why don't you have a seat over there, but before you sit down, what are you doing here? That's what he said to me. What are you doing here? Not, how was your trip? Not what brings you to New Mexico? What are you doing here? And I could tell instantly that I thought that I was coming for a tour, and I thought all this information I had given about being from Monsanto and having these ideas and wanting to share them and wanting to learn them, that I had put myself in the position, that he really wanted to know why should I have my association this place that, that we work so hard at and have built a great reputation? Why should we associate ourselves in any way with a guy from Monsanto? And he moved in that moment from being just the president that was going to introduce me to my tour guide and let me get a tour to being a gatekeeper that was gonna decide whether or not I was going to get that tour at all, let alone meet Jeffrey West.

Vance Crowe [00:09:47] And so I got really nervous, and I did what I'm sure many of you do when you get nervous, which is, I started talking faster. I started thinking, well, I could just explain this idea and I'm just gonna talk about, well, I, you know, I, I think biotech is so important. And you know, we have this fear and it's out there and you can tell with every grasp I'm making, with every loose peace move I'm making, that he is not responding to it. He does not understand. I am just throwing facts and ideas at him, and they make no sense at all. And the more that I talk, the more I'm watching his face and his demeanor harden against me, and I am feeling my chances of getting to go meet these amazing scholars at the Santa Fe Institute slip through my fingers. And the more that I watch it slip through, the more that my stomach tightens and I feel like I'm gonna get sick. So instead of thinking about, what am I gonna say next? I'm looking around for where's there a trash can in case I really need it? And somehow in that moment, my unconscious mind popped into the forefront and said, stop, stop trying to explain yourself. Do something different. And so I looked around and I saw the chalkboard, and I walked over to the chalkboard and I picked up a piece of chalk.

Vance Crowe [00:11:19] And you can tell that now he's, you know, really curious because I've just stopped talking and now I'm picking up a piece of chalk. And I said, Mr. Krakauer, I know I'm not doing a good job of explaining this, but I, I came all of this way because I have an idea and it's really important to me. And it's an idea that I have shown a lot of people and I've made it better, but I know that it's not as good as it could be. So I came here because I wanna show you and the other people that work here, this idea and see if you can tell me if it's crazy and I should throw it out, or if you can make it better, would it be all right if I drew this idea? Well, that was it, right? That was it. There's no other way to describe it. That moment right there, when I asked him, can I draw this categorically changed the nature of our relationship. We went in that exact moment from him being the gatekeeper and me being the person trying to get past the gate to me saying, Hey, I have a mystery. I have a surprise inside of this box. And would you like to take a look at it? So now he's curious, right? That is one of the functions of asking somebody, can I draw this idea? So he moves from his desk and he sits down on his couch and he motions that, yeah, yeah, go ahead. I'd be very interested to see this. And so I start drawing out this idea. And when you draw your idea, what ends up happening is you have to go step by step.

Vance Crowe [00:12:54] One thing leads to another because in order to draw any figure, in my case it was a line and then another line. And then I had to label my axes, and then I had to talk my way through it. As I draw out this graph, you can find me giving this talk about the, well actually graph on YouTube. I'll see if I can link it in the show notes. It's not very sophisticated. I'm not drawing beautiful images. I'm not even drawing very clear graphs. My handwriting looks like a, like a sixth graders or something. So it's not that I know how to draw in some fancy way. It is that drawing the idea makes me go through in a pattern where I have to go step by step by step, and he's following along with me. And not only is he following along with me, now we are not presented on two opposite sides of the problem. Instead, we're standing shoulder to shoulder and I'm laying out my case, and when I get all the way done, I'm able to hand the piece of chalk over to him and say, can you make this idea better? And you know what he did? He stood up and he started drawing on it. And he asked me questions and we start relating with one another. And we had completely changed how we were talking with one another. We went from that gatekeeper trying to get past motif to now being two people working on a problem together. And that is one of the most elemental parts of life, right?

Vance Crowe [00:14:28] People working on problems together, solving them together. And we ended up having such a great conversation about this thing that I had drawn on the chalkboard that his administrator had to interrupt three separate times, Mr. Krakau, we need to really be moving this along. We need to get Vance on his tour. And you have another meeting, came in again, went Mr. Krakau, we really need to move this along. And finally on the third time when she came in, we stood up and shook hands and he said, I look forward to seeing you at lunch. Feel free after your tour to stick around. And by the way, I'm gonna make sure I write Jeffrey an email to make sure that he keeps time on his calendar to meet with you. I think he's gonna wanna see this now in the moment. I thought the reason he's gonna wanna see this was because the idea I had drawn was so great. You know, this, this hypothesis I had called the Well actually graph was so good. And I'll admit, I think it's a very good idea. It is definitely worth you going to look up. But now when I look back on that experience, I realize that the reason that he did that was not because my idea was so brilliant. He's exposed to brilliant ideas all the time. The reason that he was so willing to let me pass and wanted to introduce me to Jeffrey West was because I had drawn my idea. And you can do that too. You are in experiences all of the time where you're not getting your message through, where for some reason the words that you're using just don't communicate your full meaning.

Vance Crowe [00:16:09] So by drawing your ideas, you get to increase the bandwidth, the amount of information that you share with another person. And at the exact same time, you take them from being adversarial to standing shoulder to shoulder with you. And so I cannot recommend highly enough that you start doing this all the time. Do it on coasters, do it on pieces of paper, do it on chalkboards and dry erase boards all of the time. Even when you are certain that the other person knows what you're talking about, just draw it out. Because what will end up happening is you'll change your relationship with them. You will get better at thinking through things one at a time, and your ideas will become clearer. And not only will you be able to communicate more to other people, but you will open up your ideas so that if they have a criticism of your idea, that can actually make it better by drawing it, they'll be able to circle it and point out where you could tighten this thing up, where you could get better, where your understanding is not as good as it could be. So that's my advice for this week. I hope that you spend some time drawing out ideas, practice it all the time. And if you have one that's really good, I hope you'll tweet it at me. I hope you just throw it up at Vance Crow. And tell me about times and experiences that you put yourself into in this next week where you have drawn your idea and it's made a difference. 'cause I think this is the fundamental technique. I'm gonna have trouble going forward each week, having one that is as valuable and as important as this one.

Vance Crowe [00:17:45] 'cause this one will change your life. So I'm gonna sign off for now. If you wanna learn more about some of the communications techniques I use and the talks that I go out and give to large organizations, check out my website, Vance Crowe dot com. Otherwise, keep listening to the podcast. I'm gonna post another interview on Wednesday, and I love, love, love talking with people on Twitter. So that's it for now. Have a great week.