[00:00.5]
Welcome to Inside Personal Growth podcast Deep dive with us as we unlock the secrets to personal development, empowering you to thrive. Here, growth isn't just a goal, it's a journey. Tune in, transform, and take your life to the next level by listening to just one of our podcasts.

[00:20.4]
Welcome back to Inside Personal Growth. My name is Greg Voisen and I am here in Encinitas, California. And I don't know what episode this is going to be, Ben, but it is going to in the 1200s somewhere, might even be 1300.

[00:35.7]
We're getting close, but we appreciate all our listeners who come back again and again to listen to the show and the faithful listeners that are there in New York City. Joining me and from the Bronx, did you say? Is that right? Brooklyn, actually. Although I love the Bronx. Okay, great restaurants up there.

[00:53.1]
From Brooklyn is Ben Swire. S W I R E. And Ben, good day to you. Thank you for being on the show. Thank you, thank you for having me. I've been really, really looking forward to it. Well, good. And he has been, actually busy writing a new book and we're going to talk about that new book.

[01:14.0]
So we're delighted to have you on. He's an innovative thought leader in company culture and workplace belonging. He's been award winning designer, writer and former design lead at renowned innovation firm Ideo.

[01:29.9]
He's also the co founder of Make Believe Works, which we're going to put a link to that website as well. Pioneer, a team building company, uses creative activities to accelerate connection, deepen trust and fuel collaboration. And if you go to that website, which there'll be a link below, you'll see it.

[01:47.2]
You'll see that he has a lot of fun. It's playful and when people play, they can create. He's also the author of this book. Do you have the book in your hands or are we just too early for that? We're a little early for that. It's going to come out October 14th. Okay, so it's Safe Danger, which offers a fresh approach to building trust, creativity and meaningful relationships through playful, low stakes activities.

[02:13.9]
His work has earned praise by Harvard Business School's Amy Edmondson, who calls it delightful and profound and one of the most useful management books you'll read this year. So do go get a copy. We'll put a link to Amazon below. Click down in the show notes and you'll see that, through his keynotes and workshops, Ben has helped organizations ranging from Fortune 500 companies, public school districts to build building Healthier, more productive workplaces.

[02:42.4]
His philosophy centers on the idea that meaningful growth happens when we take small creative risks in psychologically safe environments. Transforming new team. How teams connect, collaborate, and innovate together.

[02:59.6]
Well, that is the. I would say my bio. Now, let's kind of hear from you, because I think people always like to know when an, author like yourself writes a new book like this called Safe Danger, which in it, by itself, it's really quite a conundrum title.

[03:20.3]
How did you come about writing this book? What's a little bit of your history before we dive into the actual book and the contents itself? Well, I'm a bit of a. I think I've been called a creative platypus.

[03:36.5]
So I have. I'm made up of lots of different parts. Philosophy, physics, marketing, art, psychology that don't often go together. But in my case, they. They do. And I ended up at this organization, this design firm called ideo.

[03:53.6]
And it was the first time that I was really able to feel all the different elements of myself really come to life and blossom and be welcomed. And it just ignited something in me that I'd been missing along the lines.

[04:09.5]
And I started doing these workshops with idea, these creative play dates as a way to sort of fuel this culture that I just loved. And eventually they took off and I started thinking about what had made them so special. And we built that eventually into its own business and then wrote about it in this book, Safe Danger.

[04:29.5]
Interesting. And what was one thing that happened to you, at ideo, that literally you could point to one or two things that really transformed you, into somebody to do this kind of work for a living.

[04:48.2]
Right. Because, you know, at ideo, yeah, you were doing it, but not in the way you're doing it probably right now. Would that be true? That's true. I, think what IDEO helped me do was to accept all the different parts of myself.

[05:06.8]
I think I'd come from the financial marketing world, where you really want to show up as professional and seamless and polished and gleaming as possible. And I went to ideo, and there was a real acceptance of all the different parts of the people that were there.

[05:24.7]
There, was an awareness that it was the stuff that sort of stuck out that was actually what made you the most valuable. And so as I came to accept that and learn how to design from the parts that I had otherwise wanted to hide and really understood the power of that, that's when it launched me into this direction and it set me on this Path of helping other people discover the parts of themselves that may have been locked away or hidden and how to use that as a way to really connect and find their own path going forward.

[05:57.9]
Yeah. And when you're doing innovation kind of work, you have to, in my estimation, get into an altered state of reality to actually come up with great ideas. Right. And that, and you do that without drugs, which is really cool. So, you know, there was no ayahuasca.

[06:18.1]
There was nothing else. It was just you and you thinking about it with the team now, you know, you coined this fascinating term, safe danger. Can you break that down for us? What does it actually mean and how did you discover this concept?

[06:35.0]
Because you've now, you know, you're launching a brand new book now, Ben, and so the world is going to see you as the safe danger guy.

[06:45.8]
It's definitely not what I had planned, when I set out on my career, but I welcome it heartily. Good. So, I mean, you know, we all live on this sort of spectrum between safety and danger. You know, sort of pendulating back and forth between them in our lives.

[07:02.2]
Safety gives us stability and trust, but if you stay there too long, it gets stale and we stagnate. Danger, on the other hand, is, is really necessary and powerful for growth. You know, you can't learn to walk without risking a fall or to love without risking heartbreak.

[07:19.6]
But when you're faced with too much of it all at once, you shut down and you run. So safe danger I think of as sort of the emotional sweet spot where you're safe enough to leave safety behind. And you can start taking some small but real risks that may mean, you know, sharing a half formed idea or revealing something personal.

[07:41.1]
But safe danger I just think of as sort of being the best of both worlds. Do you kind of think of it like I have an author that just approached me, wants me to do. His is called Escape from Comfort. And you know, the reality is, I think what you're saying here is the continuum between safety and danger.

[08:02.6]
That you've got to leave this world to go here, to explore, to be curious, to find out what's going on. That curiosity is one thing I found with most innovators, with most entrepreneurs is where all these ideas start is really with my curiosity.

[08:19.2]
And, and that's one thing. All my life I've been. But you mentioned in the book that you would have never gone to one of your own workshops, and that's really quite an admission. What changed your mind about the power of these activities because you have to get people come into a room and you got to move them from safety, I'm not going to say all the way to danger, but they have to get quite uncomfortable.

[08:46.1]
Yes. No, I'm not trying to, I'm not throwing anybody into a lion's den. The idea is just to get them comfortable with it. And you know, no, I wouldn't have gone to my own workshops, I think initially.

[09:01.2]
And you know, that's. That is actually how I begin the book. I'd been trying to figure out how to start writing when I was first sitting down to it, because I sort of thought I needed to win everyone over from that very first sentence. But as I thought about it, I just realized that, no, that's really not me.

[09:18.2]
So I'm going to start by being completely honest, completely open, and just see where that gets me. So the truth is, you know, I'm a very deep introvert and I have a healthy dose of cynical skepticism running through me. So for most of my career, I really would rather have, you know, gnawed off a limb and run for the hills than do another role playing skit or balloon tower challenge.

[09:40.5]
They just, they always rub me the wrong way. They felt like sort of forced fun, a big ask in the moment, but with, with no real lasting payoff. So really not for me. But it was in the. That was before. That's not now because that was the before times, you know.

[09:57.0]
So you, you know, you mentioned you were in this financial services sector, come to work, you know, all prepared and whatever. And now you get to be a bit crazy. And this is team building accident, team building that you're doing.

[10:12.2]
And it's so important with team to have trust, to trust in the other people. What was it that was this Kansas of Oz moment like for you, right, that you. Hey, it's like I was it financial guy, went to ideo.

[10:29.6]
Now I'm designing this course, I'm out, I'm writing this book. What was this epiphany like for you? Because everybody in your, course, you're hoping they have these same epiphanies as a result of coming in and playing and engaging and you know, working together in a team.

[10:47.9]
Right? Yeah, yeah, 100%. I mean that was, I think that the difference that I. The going from Kansas into Oz Technicolor moment for me was, you know, it's a lot like what, Brene Brown puts so beautifully when she talks about the difference between fitting in and belonging.

[11:04.7]
Where Fitting in is when you change yourself to be accepted. And belonging is when you come exactly as you are. And ideo was that for me, and what I realized with these activities is, I sort of stumbled into it, that it was doing it for other people as well.

[11:21.2]
You know, we would, we would do these activities that I had designed out of my own intuition, trying to come up with something I wouldn't have hated as a cynical introvert. Essentially, I just wanted it, I just wanted people to have fun and feel like it was time well spent.

[11:36.3]
But what I started hearing back from people, they would come up to me, sort of glowing, saying, oh, they'd found a new best friend, or they suddenly understood someone in a way that was really going to help, or they'd reused the activity with clients and unlocked a whole piece that had been missing.

[11:51.8]
And that was really the turning point. That's when I realized that this could be more than just fun, that this could help people get vulnerable without feeling exposed. They could feel seen without worrying about being judged. And it would help people, you know, reluctant participants like me essentially, to really build trust and connection.

[12:11.9]
And that's, that's when I was hooked. When I saw that people didn't just walk away smiling, they, they walked away changed in the way that I had been changed. And for all those who are listening to him, if you really think his backdrop is colorful, go to, go to make believeworks.com I'm going to put a plug in for it right here because that's where the team building is, the activities, the location, what the peoples are saying.

[12:38.3]
Awesome website by the way. Thank you. Definitely. Go take a look at that. Now look, you identified three major problems in the book, that typical team building had been created around. One is, competition, passivity and old news.

[12:57.8]
Right. And I'd agree with you. I've been in these exercises. I know. I've actually led these kind of exercises. And I realized how stubborn people can be initially. They can literally just like sit there and go, this guy in the classroom, this is me.

[13:13.4]
You're not going to change me. I'm not going to play your damn little games. Right. But the reality is, can you give some examples of how these play out in real world workplace situations so people feel more comfortable?

[13:30.0]
Yeah. So, just to add on to this, when we were 3, 4, 5 years old, we played all the time, right? This is the old saying, hey, we were playing with our blocks, we were doing our stuff, we were having fun, we were kids and as we got culturalized in this society, then everybody put all these damn effing expectations on us.

[13:52.4]
We literally became like this person in a box, right? And we had to live up to that. How do you get people to get out of those boxes, break free during your sessions, so that they can actually become that kid again who had fun and enjoyed life?

[14:14.6]
It's in the design of the activities that we do, and it's marvelous. I'm looking at your face, and that's the expression. When people light up and they realize that they're loud to be kids again, they're allowed to get in touch with this. And so we structure our activities. You know, as you said, competition, passivity, and what we think of as old news, those are the most conventional tropes that team building relies on.

[14:38.4]
Competition. Super easy to get people excited and fired up, but it inherently divides people. It pits them against each other. Most people show off. And so, you know, it's not a great recipe for building authentic trust. So instead of competition in our activities, we lean into creativity and, conversation.

[14:58.6]
Essentially, we use creativity a little bit like, I think of it like oven mitts. It's a safe way to sort of handle dangerous material. And we get them talking about themselves in ways that they may have forgotten. Forgotten themselves about how to.

[15:14.3]
How to describe themselves, to talk from a safe place. Passivity has sort of the opposite problem. You know, it's fun activities like cooking classes or guest speakers, but where the audience isn't invited to contribute anything of themselves. So if you hadn't shown up, no one would notice.

[15:31.3]
So we try really hard when we design our activities to make sure that everybody is essential to the activity. They're all in the room for a purpose. Everybody gives and receives. Everybody teaches and learns, so they know there was a reason they were there. And then old news also can be lots of fun, happy hours, escape rooms, and things like that.

[15:49.9]
But basically, where the loud people get loud, the quiet people get quiet, and everyone leaves knowing exactly what they knew in the first place. So, again, we try to create, dynamics between people where they learn something new about everybody else in the room, the connections between them, and hopefully themselves.

[16:08.3]
Well, that comes down to this one. Look, I've cited this many times. You know, Southwest Airlines, Herb Kelleher, he had big hearts on the back of the plane because he would walk around. He was known to be the guy that gave love, right? Now, he was also the guy that used love and business before many people were even talking about love.

[16:27.3]
And Business. And you have this pro provocative line in your book. Everyone wants to feel loved. Well, that's. That's true. I'm not certain that everybody knows what love is. It depends on their circumstances, their environments, where they came from.

[16:43.4]
But that seems like kind of a risky thing, even in today's world, in 2025 versus in 1980, when Kelleher was running around with M&MS. And going to people's desks and making them laugh and say, hey, just do what you can to satisfy the customer.

[17:00.2]
Right, right. How do you defend this premise if you need to even defend it at this point? Yeah, I mean, it is a risky thing to say. And, I almost cut the line a few times. But, you know, as I said before, I decided just to be frank and honest about things.

[17:19.3]
I don't danger. But what I would say is, like, I see Ben Swire, the psychologist here, because in reality, I was wondering when you got your degree in psychology, because it's. I'm just being. I'm just playing with you.

[17:34.8]
But the point is, to lead one of these workshops, you've really got to be a psychologist, and you have to read the room, and you got to get a sense and a feeling of where it's coming from and how it opens up. And you're a master at that. I've watched a few of the videos.

[17:49.8]
So, you know, what is this defending this premise of love? Do you think these people are coming in the room and I'd say probably for the most part, many of them don't feel loved. They don't feel loved. They don't want to be there. There's lots of things that I'm trying to get over with them in order to win them over.

[18:08.2]
But what I mean by, you know, that everyone wants to be loved is just that at our core, essentially, we all want to be valued for who we are and not just what we do. You know, it's nice. Obviously, we love being recognized for our accomplishments. But the flip side is that no one wants to really believe that they'd be utterly abandoned if they weren't able to deliver.

[18:27.7]
You want to feel like if you stumble, someone will pick you up. So by saying that everyone wants to be loved, I'm not saying we should turn the office into a junior high sleepover. It's not about hugs and sing alongs and participation trophies. It's about creating a culture.

[18:44.4]
It's about designing interactions where people can feel seen and safe and appreciated. And the research backs it up. That when people feel cared about beyond their deliverables, engagement, productivity, and loyalty all go through the roof.

[19:00.6]
So, you know, making people feel seen and important is one of the strongest foundations you can build on. But it takes effort. Well, one of the things you mention in the book is Joseph Campbell's Hero's Journey. And I mean, I think everybody out there knows it.

[19:17.2]
And we know that many movie scripts in Hollywood follow the hero's journey. As a matter of fact, most of them. And you say that there's reluctant heroes. How does this psychological pattern show up in workplace dynamics? Because, hey, you know, you bring all these people into a room for one day, two days, whatever the workshops are, and you get to know them really well.

[19:44.5]
Right. By the time you leave, or the team leaders that you have get to know all these people, well, speak about that hero's journey and these reluctant heroes, because that's really what you're bringing out, is that these people are all heroes.

[20:02.0]
Yeah, I mean, I'm a writer, so Campbell's Hero's Journey is always rattling around in my head. But I've been fascinated by basically the second beat in it, which is the refusal of the call that no hero gets an opportunity to grow and change, without first being beckoned.

[20:20.0]
And most of their first instinct is to say, no, thanks. You know, I've got. I've got a harvest on the farm or whatever's going to hold them back. But, you know, we're all the heroes of our own story, and we're constantly being invited to moments of growth.

[20:35.4]
But most of us, I think, try to ignore those invitations because they're uncertain and scary. In the workplace, most of the calls to adventure aren't big, epic challenges. You know, those come along sometimes, but for the most part, what I see is that there are small daily choices.

[20:53.8]
You know, for an introvert, it might be just starting a conversation. For a type A personality, it might just be asking for help. But most of us say no to those moments at first, just like reluctant heroes, because they risk the identity that we've so carefully, you know, crafted for ourselves.

[21:12.3]
So that's why I love the Safe danger activities, because it gives people a chance to rehearse these risks without really worrying about the consequences. You know, they get to practice stepping outside their comfort zone so that the next time a real world call to adventure comes, it feels possible instead of paralyzing.

[21:30.7]
And over time, you build the muscle to say yes when it really matters. Well, you know, what you actually border on here is moving people. You Know, you talk about psychological safety as kind of the central theme, but you border on this, as far as I can see.

[21:49.5]
You know, I took many of Richard Barrett's things. We've all studied Maslow's hierarchy of needs. We understand that people are at different levels, but you're elevating levels of consciousness. And in the process, to elevate that consciousness, to get to that point of being the most creative we can.

[22:08.7]
I'm gonna say this very boldly. I think it's a spiritual move. It's a spiritual transformation for most people to actually recognize it, or at least it's recognizing, their intuition. Right.

[22:24.5]
So you might not want to say it is spiritual, but I wrote a book called Hacking the Gap, A Journey from Intuition to Innovation and Beyond. And I believe when intuition comes in and they get this discernment about hearing either a voice or seeing something or understanding something, that's when that happens.

[22:42.7]
So how do you actually create an environment where people can actually make this happen for them and they're open and vulnerable? Right. I think that's the key. I love the way you describe that, because I really do think it's much more of an intuitive sensibility than it is an intellectual one.

[23:04.9]
So to that end, the first thing I do in my workshops is, Well, the first thing I don't do is announce this is a safe space. I don't use words to declare that because, you know, safety isn't announced. It's experienced, it's felt, it's sensed.

[23:20.9]
So the way we run our workshops is we just make sure that that's built into the way we do things. So, for example, we make sure that we celebrate, reward, acknowledge the things that are completely within someone's control, like intention or curiosity or generosity, as opposed to talent or expertise that.

[23:39.7]
That can hierarchy. Again, it comes back to celebrating people for who they are rather than what they do and sort of leveling that playing field. So if somebody's created something and during the feedback, instead of saying, that's beautiful or that's stunning or something, which invites comparison and starts everybody else's wheels turning in their heads, wondering if theirs is as beautiful, I lead with curiosity.

[24:02.2]
And so I'll say something like, well, I see you used all these different shades of blue, but nothing else. What made you choose that? Where did that come from? So it shows people that they're being seen without sort of being judged and invites them to share their thinking that they always have a choice in how much they share and how deep they go.

[24:22.5]
But the structure ensures that everyone's contribution is valued and acknowledged. And that's what we find creates a space that's safe enough for vulnerability to feel like a risk worth taking. And the fact that you do it in a group, I think a group setting is really valuable.

[24:42.8]
As the book kind of weaves through, you do talk about some deep personal stories, including your own depression and your introvertive outreach approach. How did your own struggles with that kind of help you inform the methods that you've developed?

[25:05.0]
Because many of the people in the room had the same thing or have the same thing that you were dealing with or even are still dealing with, but doing it in a different way. Yeah, I mean, yeah, absolutely.

[25:21.0]
I mean, honestly, I owe everything to what I do today, to the stuff I used to try to avoid and hide. Those experiences were painful. But without them, I wouldn't be who I am. So they made it very, they made me very aware of how hard it can be to connect, to feel valued, to feel safe.

[25:42.4]
But, when I finally realized that I was at my best, when I allowed that experience to inform my work, that's when I really felt I'd sort of locked into a sense of purpose and a sense of myself, of what I could really add to the world that was uniquely me.

[25:59.9]
So, you know, when I design activities, I, think about the extremes. So I design for the skeptics, the introverts, the people that would rather disappear than do another forced fun activity. Because if I can bring them in, if I can win over the person who's dreading it the most, I know it'll work for everyone else.

[26:18.0]
But, you know, on a deeper level, on a more, as you put it, spiritual level, I think I've learned that the struggles, the cracks and the dents that we all carry. Yeah. Aren't liabilities. They're often the source of our best insight, our most unique creative solutions, and our deepest connections.

[26:38.6]
The poet Rumi has this lovely line where he says, the crack is how the light gets in. And I've always just that really resonated for me. So a big thread in my work is now helping people sort of value and not hide the parts that they've. They've learned to apologize for or just bury.

[26:56.4]
I love that statement about the crack is where the light comes in, because we're all looking for the light, you know. And you told a beautiful story about your aunt in the book and her tea cake mindset. Yeah. Bringing small acts of generosity to work.

[27:12.4]
And I happen to reflect on this question because I was with a friend that I've had known for 30 years yesterday having lunch, and, you know, he's an attorney, and he gets these referrals from all over. And I said, well, when's the last time that you gave XYZ that you.

[27:32.2]
That you sent her something or said generous, you know, or you got together and took her lunch? He says, almost never. And I said, but how much work has she generated for you this last year? And he says, oh, my gosh, just thousands of dollars of activity.

[27:47.4]
And I'm like, well, a small act of kindness might be, you know, maybe you should reach out to her and think about, you know, that. And so how do small gestures create big cultural shifts inside of companies? Because now we're talking about a culture that has to shift about the way it treats individuals with.

[28:07.9]
Inside the culture. Right. You know, I always look at old Margaret Wheatley and her work, with ecosystems, you literally have this ecosystem that you're in, and you're trying to divide the cells or unite the cells, let's put it that way, so that it comes together to create something much more meaningful.

[28:31.7]
So how do. How does generosity work in your estimation? Yeah, I mean, as you point out, my aunt is just the queen of small, thoughtful gestures. Big, ones, too. But. But what makes her really special and what really resonated and taught me something meaningful was the little things, just for the people that haven't read the book.

[28:52.7]
My aunt used to run a catering company, and every job, she just quietly put out a tea cake on the counter for her staff. No announcement, no fanfare. It was just there. But it was an act that said, you know, I see you. You matter. You matter to me as people.

[29:08.6]
And so I feel that those small, consistent acts that shape a culture or can shape a culture more than any mission statement on a wall, because they send invisible signals about what's normal here, what's valued, what's assumed.

[29:26.8]
So in a workplace, that might mean remembering a detail that someone shared weeks ago, or making room for a quieter person to speak, or following up after a tough day, whatever it might be. It doesn't need to be a big, grand thing, or a gift. It just needs to be generous and thoughtful and kind.

[29:45.1]
Because the truth is, you know, as memorable as the, big gestures are, the small ones are repeatable so they can ripple outwards because they're easy for others to imitate. You hold the door for someone, they hold a door for Other people, it just grows exponentially. And over time, those everyday signals of kindness, generosity, attention become not the exception, but the air that everyone breathes.

[30:10.5]
That's when a culture really shifts. I think, something as simple as my wife always comments, because it's just who I am. If I see somebody's name on a name tag, I always address them by their names, whether I'm in a grocery store, I'm at Disneyland, or wherever it might be.

[30:31.7]
The point is, they're wearing name tags for a reason. And I say, hey, Amy, thank you. So. And it's amazing what happens when you say, just say their name, right? Because 90% of the people that pass by them, it's like they never see the name tag.

[30:48.9]
Right? It's like they don't say anything. Now you could say that's being generous. No, that's just being respectful. And we all like hearing our name. You know, we do really do like hearing. So let's get a little specific.

[31:04.6]
If someone runs a team inside of a company, wants to try your approach, what's the first safe danger activity they should attempt, in your estimation? That's a great question. This is actually for the people are going to try it on their own.

[31:20.7]
Yeah. Well, I mean, it obviously depends on the team. You know, what works for a book club won't land the same way with a sales team. But, one of my favorites that's worked sort of everywhere, is one we call the Orchestra of optimism.

[31:36.0]
And the way it works is you start by having everyone think of a time, think of going from being blocked to feeling inspired from, you know, when they were totally overwhelmed to feeling like, I've got this. What was that like? And you. First, you have them draw that out, that journey out as a.

[31:52.7]
As a simple line. You know, maybe it's a jagged zigzag or a lightning bolt. Maybe it's a tornado. Whatever it might be, they. They draw it out. But then what we do is, you know, using only found objects around you. Paperclips, coffee mugs, water glasses, you have them turn that journey into music, into sound.

[32:11.8]
So no talking. You give them 15 minutes to create a soundscape of their journey from being stuck stuck to inspired. And then you bring everyone back together, and one by one, everybody takes turns performing their piece for the group, but still without talking.

[32:28.0]
Only. Only after everyone's gone do you open up for reflection and stuff. But what's interesting about this is it allows everyone in the group to understand each other's Internal worlds in a completely unexpected way, an intuitive way, as you're talking about, you know, everyone's inner process is going to be different.

[32:45.8]
But that individuality can get lost when we all use the same words to describe ourselves. But translating the feelings into sounds sort of forces us out of those usual shortcuts. It builds instant empathy, and it shows that there's no single right way to navigate challenges.

[33:04.5]
It's a playful. It's a little vulnerable, but it's surprisingly revealing. So you said something about a coffee mug or something. Does that mean that they're going to take an instrument of some type and try and make the music?

[33:20.1]
How are they making the music? Is it something that they're using objects around them that they literally, like, pick up? I'm just trying to think of something right now. Something that I could open and close or something that I could bang against or anything like that.

[33:37.7]
Absolutely. And what, we're going to YouTube and trying to pick out a soundtrack and then play it back, right? No, that's part of the fun of it. And what you're struggling with is what everybody struggles with. There is inevitably a moment of pain, panic in everyone's eyes when they hear this instruction.

[33:53.9]
They don't know what they're going to do, and they look around and their blood goes cold. And that's great because that shows that they're being shocked out of their normal way of thinking. They know what it feels like. But now they're being challenged to tell that story in a different way.

[34:09.0]
And so they go off and somebody, grabs a series of coffee mugs and they stack them up, and when it comes time, they push them over. Because their process is a whole bit of, like, chaotic thinking that happens, and they need to throw out, order, mess everything around.

[34:25.6]
And then they'll mess the mugs up and they'll bang against each other. And then slowly, they'll begin stacking them. Clink, clink, clink, clink. And then they have their structure. Someone else will take, like, a glass of water and put a straw in it and just like, bubble it up, bubble it up, bubble it up, bubble. And it comes out.

[34:41.4]
But what you learn from that afterwards is like, oh, okay, if I'm going to work with, you know, Stevie, I know that he's going to need time to mess everything up, get to a place, and then mess it up again. So I don't have to take it personally when that happens. Or if I'm working with Jenny, I know she's gonna need time to, you know, walk away and just sit in silence for a while and then it's gonna gong.

[35:03.5]
But you get an intuitive sense that people wouldn't be able to describe as easily if you just ask them to use words to tell you know, what's your process. Doesn't work the same. Got it. So they got to get real creative. They got to go find objects and put them together to make this music.

[35:21.2]
And I think going from stuck to unstuck is a really good, situation. And it obviously shocks them because it didn't shock me. It was just kind of like I heard the coffee mug and I'm like, okay, am I going to take my pencil and bang against it and then put water in it and then bang against it and then surf up the water?

[35:39.1]
I guess I'm going to get super creative. So you mentioned that even competitive salespeople need connection, more than competition. And I would agree with you. We used to live in a world where even when we took tests it was competitive.

[35:55.2]
Now there's cohort groups, we all learn together, we kind of walk together. How do you convince results driven leaders? Because these are the guys with the KPIs that this soft stuff actually drives hard results. So let's just say Microsoft comes to you and they're saying, we want to do your make believe workshop and we're going to give you all of our salespeople who sell million dollar projects and above.

[36:22.8]
Right. How do you work with them to convince them that the soft stuff that you're going to do is really going to help these guys drive those KPIs? Yeah, well, I mean, I. Kids don't need practice loving candy.

[36:39.7]
It's what they do. Salespeople don't need practice competing. They're competitive people. This is what fuels them. So what they actually need, what's going to actually add to their game is something completely different. They need the confidence that their teammates are going to have their back, not stab them in it.

[36:57.7]
So that connection is what's going to allow them to take more risks and try new things. So, you know, I often point that out in some form or another, which is if you're looking for something new for your team, we're it. If you want them to keep doing what they're already doing every day, then we're not it.

[37:16.8]
But yes, results driven leaders, always. They do want proof that working on connection isn't just a touchy feely sideshow. So what do you kind of do as an ongoing. Sorry for interrupting, but what are you doing as a company to, after people leave, these workshops continue kind of to collect data, analytics to say, oh, yeah, there was a breakthrough as a result of, this make believe workshop happening.

[37:48.9]
And we did this, this, this, and this. Are you guys, have you been collecting data? Well, we've collected anecdotal data. We're not set up to do, you know, the stuff that would really matter. Luckily the people that are really good at stats and things have, you've got Gallup, you've got mit, you've got the University of Warwick, even Google have all shown that teams with high trust and connection don't just smile more or something, they perform better, they're more productive, they're more innovative.

[38:18.7]
So the data is actually from all these other people that have studied this work and rely on that data. I get that. And that's good enough. I mean, it should be good enough for anybody, right? It's pretty good stuff. And then the feedback we get and we do share with our people, which is, you know, we had a team leader, a sales leader from a major organization, but they, you know, she came back and she said, look, we still love to push each other, but this activity helped us see the difference between competing against each other and competing with each other.

[38:51.8]
And that really has made the difference because we can still push, but now we're on the same team. And so that resonates for a lot of leaders. Well, and, you know, your book's endorsed by some great people. And, Amy Edmondson and I used to do work with Larry Wilson, and we would get groups doing this kind of activity, and it was really kind of interesting to see the major shifts.

[39:17.9]
And they would always reference back to the work they did in these workshops where they were push to go into danger. Almost always they would reference them back. Now, you referenced the loneliness epidemic cited by the Surgeon General's research and been obviously just lots of discussion about this lately.

[39:37.4]
Yeah. How did workplace isolation, in your estimation, get so bad? I know we can all point to Covid, and what role does safe danger play in addressing it? Because the loneliness epidemic is, creating.

[39:55.5]
And there's a gentleman by the name of Charles Vogel that you should meet out of, Berkeley who wrote a book about community. Right. How to build community. And this isolation is an issue. And technology has helped to drive that.

[40:14.2]
I mean, look, you and I aren't sitting in a studio across from one another. We're thousands of miles apart. And I'm very happy for this technology. Yet on the other Hand. It does create divides, it creates isolation, it creates issues.

[40:30.1]
So anything you want to say about that? Yeah, I mean, I think, as you point out, you know, people point to Covid and digital communication and all that, and I think that's all perfectly true. But if I'm being honest, I'm not sure that the, sort of water cooler culture that is so lamented was all that great to start with.

[40:51.0]
I think a lot of it was talk about the weather and gossip and weekend plans. I don't know that it was really building meaningful bonds. I think what Covid did for us and what we're in the midst of is that it starkly revealed something that's been broken for a while.

[41:07.3]
Real connection, really. It requires more than chit chat and gossip. It requires trust. It requires a sense that you matter to people. Qualities that most workplaces often sideline in favor of speed and efficiency and staying professional. So what I love about Safe Danger is it allows you to cut through the chit chat.

[41:26.5]
You know, that may be the introvert in me speaking that just wants to get down to meaningful stuff, but it allows you to spark conversations that really do surface quickly, surface people's values and their challenges and their perspectives. And I think over time, that's what builds belonging.

[41:42.7]
And belonging is, I think, the real antidote to workplace loneliness. Yeah, belonging, connection, openness, to feel like your inclusion, like there's inclusion going on. I'm being heard.

[41:58.4]
I have a voice, especially the generations probably behind us. We're a little bit older, but that's what they want. They want meaning. They want purpose. They still want to get paid. It's nice to be able to eat. Yeah, but they do want that. So, look, you and I have been talking here for about 40 some minutes, and I always like to kind of close with a question that could get you thinking about Safe Danger in its entirety.

[42:25.8]
So if someone was going to walk away from this podcast and they've listened to us up till now. Okay, what's a couple of things that would be insightful that they could change and show up either at home or work with, that potentially could make a positive change in their relationships, in their lives and in their connections.

[42:53.2]
I think I. If there's one thing that people can take away from our work, the book and all this stuff, I think what I will. What I most hope is that, they'll start to pay attention to the moments where they're holding back. It's, you know, the joke that they almost made or the question that they swallowed and start to see those moments for what they are, which are invitations to be a little braver, a little more yourself.

[43:19.1]
You know, that growth and connection and creativity, they're the lifeblood of what makes our days worth living. But they don't come from staying comfortable. They come from when we feel safe enough to be a little uncomfortable and to take a small risk.

[43:35.9]
So I would say, you know, start small, make, make one person feel truly seen today, or take a kind, playful risk for yourself. But I have, I do deeply believe that you'll be surprised how quickly that opens the door to new experiences and insights and a different sense of self.

[43:56.4]
Do like your ad did. Aunt did. Put that tea cake out. Put the tea cake out. Everyone loves a good tea cake. Everybody likes a tea cake. Just make sure it's not the stuff that people send out at Christmas time. What are those? No fruit cakes. Fruitcakes? Yeah, no fruitcake.

[44:12.5]
Put out the tea cakes. Or the fruit. Just a nice bowl of fruit or, you know, if you really want to go this far, go and get some donuts. Everybody loves donuts. Hey. Well, Ben, it's been a pleasure having you on Inside Personal Growth.

[44:29.3]
I really have enjoyed speaking with you about your book, about your personal journey, and the insights that you have articulated to us in the last 40 minutes or so around the workshops that you put on. I want to direct our listeners though, to two websites.

[44:44.3]
One, it's just Benjamin I n s W-I-R e.com that's information about the book. The other website is where he does these workshops.

[44:59.5]
What people are saying the book is there as well. But his speaking, his blog, there's really, it's just really quite an inspiring website. And that's@makebelieveworks.com make believeworks.com both of these websites will be in the show notes below.

[45:17.8]
We appreciate you, Ben, for coming on the show. We appreciate all the listeners out there, Dave, that have made it this far. To learn more about this book called Safe Danger, please take a listen to the podcast, go to his websites, contact him and his staff and go run one of these workshops at your company.

[45:39.0]
It's going to make a profound difference in, the team building exercises. Now I'm going to say to you, thanks so much for being on the show. Well, Greg, thank you so much for creating such a great example of Safe danger in action for me. He's warm enough to feel comfortable and at ease, but risky enough to push this introvert out of his comfort zone.

[45:59.5]
But it has. It's been a real joy to get to share this time with you. Well, you didn't seem like an introvert at all, so I'm going to say that, the introvert in you transformed into an extrovert, and you did a good job.

[46:17.4]
Thank you so much, Ben. Thanks, Greg. Take care. Bye. Bye. Thank you for listening to this podcast on Inside Personal Growth. We appreciate your support. And for more information about new podcasts, please go to inside personal growth.com or any of your favorite channels to listen to our podcast.

[46:36.2]
Thanks again and have a wonderful day.