EP.80 FACING THE FUTURE WITH A FLUX MINDSET - with April Rinne, Author of FLUX: 8 Superpowers for Thriving in Constant Change

ABOUT APRIL RINNE:

BIO: 

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

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

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

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

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

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

SHOW INTRO:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

As we move into a new experience paradigm of continual change, failing fast and continual iteration may become ‘de rigeur’ because constant change will demand it and make it mainstream. In order to remain in sync with change, we will have to find a way to get right with the idea of change.

This presents a particular problem for leaders of all sorts who have been traditionally looked upon to be able to divine the future and help lead their teams with certainty into a near ordistant future state. 

How do leaders maintain a sense of trust and engender followership from their teams when they may legitimately be unsure of where their businesses might need to go as the ground shifts beneath their feet?

All of this suggests a need for extraordinary flexibility when trying to plan a pathway through a period of unprecedented change. 

That flexibility in large part comes not from our ability to develop some sort of control over the pace of change in the outer world - those things that are happening around us - but trying to find a sense of calm and flexibility within our inner world - to adjust and find a way to be in relationship with change rather than imposing our will on and resisting change as it comes to us.

This is where I get to introduce April Rennie, author of the book “Flux: 8 Superpowers For Thriving In Constant Change.”

April's highly readable book landed on my desk during the COVID pandemic when I was struggling with trying to adapt to the unknown. 

Her idea of flux is looked at as a noun and a verb;

• in the case of a noun, FLUX could be considered as “constant change”
• as a verb FLUX can mean “to learn to become fluid”

What April really focuses on however is 8 Superpowers that help you to develop what she calls the “FLUX Mindset”

- ‘the state of mind that allows you to see all change whatever it is, the good the bad, the things that you have control over and the things you can't control, the expected and the unexpected, and see all of it as an opportunity to learn to grow and improve.’

For April Rinne, the idea of change and living within a world in flux, as about seeing it as a space of emergent possibility.

That has a lot to do with feeling OK with being lost, being comfortable with not knowing.

This may mean letting go of old scripts, narratives that just don't fit anymore but that you've come to rely on as a way of explaining, or explaining away, circumstances of your life.

Perhaps we need to embrace a mindset of change that is closer to indigenous wisdom than perhaps other more wired cultures on our planet.

It's not that we control nothing, but that we shift our view to be in relationship with change.

April suggests that when we can be in relationship with uncertainty there's a kind of a dance, a push and pull, and that indigenous cultures seemed to have a keener sense of relationship - a relationship with themselves, with one another and with Mother Nature.

Our conversation leads to the invitation to see the value in our interdependence to each other and the world around us ( even if the world is in a state of FLUX ) and that we work on growing our appreciation for and prioritization of fostering a positive relationship with change.

If we can, the healthier we will be, both individually and collectively….

The NXTLVL Experience Design podcast is presented by VMSD magazine and Smartwork Media. It is hosted and executive produced by David Kepron. Our original music and audio production is by Kano Sound.

The content of this podcast is copywrite to David Kepron and NXTLVL Experience Design. Any publication or rebroadcast of the content is prohibited without the expressed written consent of David Kepron and NXTLVL Experience Design.

Make sure to tune in for more NXTLVL “Dialogues on DATA: Design Architecture Technology and the Arts” wherever you find your favorite podcasts and make sure to visit vmsd.com and look for the tab for the NXTLVL Experience Design podcast there too.