E076: Designing Your Good Life Through a Strategic Framework

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Hello, welcome to the Big Strategy Podcast. I'm your host and fellow strategist, Jeff Hyatt. This is your go-to spot for real talk with the masterminds of business strategy. It's about sharing stories, insights, and those little nuggets of wisdom to help you unlock big growth.

Let's turn the key and spring it to action. Well, thank you everyone for joining us. Back to our original format, at least for this week, when a dear friend calls and brings up the news of their new book, Designing Your Good Life by Charles Lee, and they offer to come on the podcast, I absolutely have to jump at that opportunity. So Charles, this has been over a year in the making, our conversation.

I know the book much longer, but it's great to have you. Thanks for taking the time to join us. Thanks for having me, Jeff. Always a pleasure.

And I was glad this all worked out. Yeah, totally, totally. Well, Charles and I go way back to those of you who remember Clubhouse. We met there and then had the opportunity to meet IRL and have stayed in touch.

And very fruitful, our drives up and down the 405, got to actually give a talk about AI to his community, which was super fun. But here we're to talk about designing your good life. So Charles. Tell us, what prompted you to write this book?

And I know it's not your first. So walk us through a little bit of your history and then why this book and why not? Yeah, I wrote a book years ago called Good Idea, Now What? And that was all around idea execution.

This one was kind of birthed out of like several conversations that I would have with various entrepreneurs, executives about just kind of the life that they perceived that I had built. And it got me a little bit reflective. I know when I... You know, probably you feel the same way when you talk with people.

Whatever comes out of your mouth sometimes sounds better than it actually is. But at the same time, it's probably not as... bad as you think it is. And so I went kind of on this journey just to kind of evaluate and reflect like what things that I intentionally build versus not.

And I thought a helpful framework can help people kind of determine what a good life is. And I'm not here to tell somebody like, hey, this is your good life. I'm not trying to be a guru. I think I've done enough research in this area to know that generally throughout history, when people say they want to build a good life, it usually has two key elements.

One is that they want to have a life that has meaningful relationships with people that they love. And secondly, is to do something in the world that's of good, to be contributing person, whether it's to your loved ones, to your community, or to the world. Those are kind of the focuses of most of the research dating way back to Aristotle till today. The relationships and having a meaningful impact.

Yep. seem to be it. And I kind of reflect on the things that matter the most to me. And it's certainly relationships with family and as your parents as well.

And the impact that you have on your child or the impact you hope your child has on the world through something they've picked up through osmosis by hanging around with us is really cool. When you were thinking about a good life, how many different angles did you kind of view this from? I think some people, right, the good life is sitting, you know, at the resort by the pool. For some people, the good life is being of service.

For some people, it's spiritual. How did you, I mean, it's a really hairy topic. How did you kind of pull on that yarn or pull on that thread? Yeah, that's an excellent question.

I mean, honestly, I try to do enough like. research to understand how various people have approached and you're right it really kind of depends right if you were raised here in the west versus the east uh some of it may be dictated by like you know which uh are you the older sibling the younger you know your career your interest what you think is enough financially to one's maybe religious views or political views, all of these kind of factor into what a quote unquote good life is.

And after doing all of that, I thought it was more helpful to stay kind of practical. And this is where I kind of created the framework around design your good life, which is meant to be kind of a sandbox in which people can kind of explore, walk through a particular process, and then along the way develop certain like mindsets and skill sets and drives. outcome desires. And so that's the way I approach it is I thought, you know, if I could provide a framework that's practical, that would be the most useful instead of trying to dictate what a good life is.

Yeah. And it is so unique that to your point, dictating it is sort of fruitless. And so being a good MBA student and also a professor, I would certainly say that we love frameworks. So talk to us a little bit about this framework and you talk about three components.

I'm shocked you were able to distill it to three components. So I'm sure we will have as much of a conversation about what is in that framework versus what is on the cutting room floor. But yeah, please talk to us before you get into the framework. What was your thought process up to this point?

Yeah, I did want to distill it down into like a workable framework that works in whether professional context or a personal one. And I'll give you a couple of different examples. The framework was broken down into three. And these are basically three elements or three phases people go to.

And the idea was whether you're starting way at the beginning. of trying to figure out maybe what your future holds or you feel like something's on the horizon. And this is not age specific. It could be somebody going into retirement or someone thinking about, you know, developing a better relationship with their teenage daughter.

Whatever the case may be, it usually starts in this phase called spark. And this is kind of the beginning. And the middle phase is called actualizes, where if you can develop a particular direction and spark, which is kind of the outcome goal, is then you got to figure out like, how am I actually going to... to execute on this.

And this resonates with a lot of the content I've created in the past with my first book and then since then. And then the last phase is those who taste a little bit of success in actualizing the idea is really thinking about influence and the legacy you want to create. And that has a lot to do with stewardship of your resources and your relationships and the ideas that you have so that you move from not just being the best in the world in something, but being the best for the world.

And it's kind of that shift to say, hey, let's go and create meaningful impact in the world. So it all starts in Spark. And Spark starts with this mindset of curiosity. And I know you and I have talked in the past about curiosity.

There's a lot of great research around the brain and curiosity and all of the mental and physical health benefits, the longevity benefits. all kind of wrapped into this idea of curiosity. So each phase kind of tackles a particular mindset, a particular skill set to develop in that phase, all the way to like an outcome to pursue because you do the hard work of actualizing the idea. And that's too often the case, right?

Is that it's easy to think, but that spark, and I'm anxious to know more about this because as I stay, I live for the aha moment. And that's oftentimes, is that the spark that you're referring to? Or that aha moment, is that more of the actualization? Or is actualization taking that spark and beginning to put the wheels into motion?

How does that whole process, where's that process? Yeah, I think Spark, I think what you described at the end is probably the most accurate is Spark will kind of get you going. I think curiosity will give you new ideas, practices like putting yourself in an unfamiliar environment or learning from people outside of your field or entering new verticals of learning. to begin to kind of get you out of your own, like not only comfort zone or familiarity around topics, it starts to stretch your mind and your thinking.

And pleasantly, you're going to come up with a lot of these intersections of ideas because, you know, often whether it's innovation or creativity, it's a result of like seemingly unrelated things that intersect. And so in that phase, that kind of spark that comes from curiosity, and then that kind of feeds into the skill set of ideation. This idea of really, you know, I use a couple of different samples. One is kind of the design thinking process that you're highly familiar with that helps people kind of connect the dots.

increase empathy about what they care about and kind of walks them through from divergence to convergence and all of that good stuff and driving towards clarity so that at least you have like directional purpose. I recognize that purpose needs to be refined over time. So the book's not guaranteeing some type of purpose by the end of Spark. It just kind of sets you up to say, now let's test that purpose theory as we start to implement.

And that's where the true refinement and the actualization happens. And so that's where we dive in a little bit into moving from having a proof of concept to actually having a proof of value behind something. So it's not just a good idea. It's putting in the work so you end up with value.

And the outcome of the second phase actualizes confidence, being able to enter a room and engage somebody knowing what value you bring to the table. knowing that you've actually put in the hours, that what you've created is actually meaningful to the party you're trying to engage. And people who work with that level of confidence that has competence is a powerful combination because there are people who have competence, but for some reason, when they get to that moment of sharing, they lack the confidence, while other people have fake it till you make it confidence.

But in the long run, your incompetence will begin to shine. So it's really kind of having both. And if you do that, you're bound to be probably a higher probability that you'll actually succeed because you know exactly what you're bringing, what you're delivering. And that's when you start to create meaningful influence, which is the last phase.

Is execute. So it's creating something of value, recognizing that value, and then having an influence in the world. Yeah, absolutely. And I mean, you're a successful entrepreneur.

How much of your entrepreneurial journey informed this framework? And were there stories that like stood out from your past? That's one I want to make sure gets captured. Yeah, I think every chapter of this book actually starts with a personal story of mine and whether the highs or lows, the challenges.

And for example, like on, since we just discussed kind of the proof of value, when I first started as an entrepreneur, I didn't have the right. background i often found myself in rooms because of some of the events that i threw where i felt like the least qualified i felt like the biggest imposter entering the room and what tend to happen over time is that you know i went from a place of deep insecurity to a place where I knew I had maybe a proof of concept that would be helpful in helping executives execute.

But what I did was I did the work of improving my expertise, my knowledge of the field, creative processes that work for our clients. And over time, it became not just a proof of concept for a business, but a proof of value for our customers. And I saw kind of my... confidence level go up and now you know when we pitch a you know this is a practical example is when we pitch an engagement i have no doubt that whatever value of that pitch is the client's going to get far more i couldn't have said that at the beginning i would have kind of at some level i was hopeful i could do it but something shifts when you actually put in the thousands of hours of work where you're committed to your craft and you're trying to make it better and better as each week goes by, I always remind our team that, hey, let's do one thing this week that makes us a better company.

And if everyone does that every single week, we're going to become a phenomenal company over time. And so I think it's that commitment of moving from a concept to value that was extremely helpful in my journey. And this book is full of those kinds of stories of like sitting in a room, trying to be honest with the client. You know, there are times, I remember one client, I write about this in the book where I told them that I really didn't have experience in the area that they were wanting help in.

But what was great is because they had been following me and the content I was creating online. They said, we know that you don't have vertical experience, but it's clear to us and in the clients that we've talked to that you've had in the past, you have the skillset to be resourceful enough to figure it out. And I didn't know I was creating that reputation, but it was really encouraging to hear that. And they said, hey, we appreciate your honesty.

We want to work with people who can be just frank and direct with us for the sake of the outcome. And so I just kind of learned that over time. And that would be a sample of some of the things. So it's super practical.

This framework is filled with stories that are meant to be research-based as well as incredibly practical for the reader. where folks can derive the most value is the fact that it's, yes, it's academically rooted, but also just your own experience, right? Either backs that up or contradicts it, whatever that might be. It gives people a balanced perspective.

One thing that stuck out to me in what you shared is delivering more value than they expect. And obviously that's just the hallmark of good business. But the flip side of that is Does that mean that we constantly underprice ourselves as professionals? And how do you balance those two versus over-delivering for the sake of the relationship or to build a reputation, but then also capturing the value that you create?

Yeah, I think when we think about value creation from our business, when we say we're confident that we're delivering value, it has nothing to do with lowering the price. I think it has everything to do with making sure the client sees that what we're producing actually delivers something deeper. Because it's not just the end product we're delivering. We're helping them develop their mindset about how to invest in some areas of business.

We're helping them with further connections beyond the project through our extensive network. So what the client begins to see is like, yeah, you guys... probably deliver better than we expected on the project itself but on top of that now we're welcoming them into our network so it feels more like a partnership and then we're giving them exposure to new ideas and insights that are coming from different industries so that they feel more empowered and more confident that what they're producing is actually a helpful product or service that they are part of a network of innovative companies so it's all of those kinds of things coming together that creates the value.

So we think beyond the project scope itself to think of other additive things that may help them succeed in life and business. To create that flywheel, the goal is to provide that value so that you get the referrals. And again, I'll never forget this conversation. It was, I had just graduated undergrad and I was talking to this entrepreneur and he said, you know, one day, you're going to put in 10 units of effort and you're going to get nothing out.

And then one day you'll put in that ninth unit of effort and you'll get one thing out, one unit out. And ultimately his argument was, is that someday you'll find you're putting one unit in and getting nine units out. And if you follow that, that story, it kind of aligns to what you're talking about in the sense of I'm just creating. value.

And I guess I am giving some value away in the short term, but my firm belief is that that is coming back to me. Absolutely. Yeah. And it generally does.

And we will turn 17 this year as a business and we have yet to really market ourselves. It's been 95 plus percent, all just word of mouth. And it's clients referring us to other clients. And it's deeply humbling.

And we always tell our team, like, if we continue to produce quality and value, people will talk about it. And I think in today's world, it's not that difficult to get your message out, but it's incredibly difficult to get people to care about what you're saying. And I feel like if we can focus on creating outputs that people choose to talk about because it's valuable. When person A tells person B about something you did for them, that's like the best form of marketing.

But to create that takes extra care. To create that takes extra effort that may not be a part of a scope, but it does create, to your point, that kind of flywheel effect over time. And I think that's where the kind of the magic is. And it's nothing against, you know, agencies or firms that market.

I think that's fine. But we've chose to... exert our energy and kind of creating that wow uh that was that was incredible experience with ideation our company um and so that's what we focus on and that's where we even spend resources on if it means we create a special moment for our clients that's more meaningful than spending ad dollars basically interesting which is so fascinating because so much time energy brain power goes into a firm social presence just That's the front door today to most companies.

But underneath that, you're saying that rather than doubling down on that presence, you're finding it way more valuable to spend that time actually reinvesting in your clients through better work. Yeah, and it could be simple things like, I know it's easy to remember client birthdays, but we also try to remember days where they lost a loved one. or some moments in their life that they are super proud of, but will remember it a year later. I think it's just taking it to a deeper level of kind of client care.

And part of it is you're developing more than, it's not a transaction we're looking for. It's for a relationship that will outlast the scope of a project. Because even if they never come back, we've seen so many clients that actually will pivot and become our best salespeople. So I think that that's the idea is we never burn bridges.

We want to invest in people and see where that takes us. And so far it's worked. I'll let you know if it changes. But so far it's worked.

Well, so with that, then just knowing you personally, if you don't mind taking the conversation here is this is obviously, you know, designing your good life is obviously something that's born of many years of professional experience. Is there a way that you're able to or attempting to share this wisdom with your children so that like maybe they don't have to take as many bumps and bruises as mom and dad did, for example? Yeah, yeah. I wish the nature of human beings is that when they hear good advice, they would just take it.

They would, yes. They're right. It would be so much easier. Yeah, I believe, yeah, Confucius talked about like different kinds of wisdom and the most wise person, someone who could hear.

good advice and actually take it, but that's very rare in this world. So yeah, I mean, our kids have been a deep part of my wife, Tina, and I's journey through entrepreneurship. And we do hope, thankfully, they're kind of of the age now. They're both college and older, one that's graduated.

And so they're beginning to see how life works in the real world. And I've been so encouraged because writing a book like this is pretty daunting. Because it sounds either super arrogant or audacious to pursue this topic. I mean, who am I to really talk about this?

And in the book, actually towards the end, I tell a story about me driving with my wife one day through the desert. And I asked her, hey, do you think we've designed a good life together? And that was like the scariest question I've ever asked. Because if she would have responded the right way saying no.

then it be in trouble a little too late for do-overs yeah and then she she paused which i appreciated she didn't have a knee-jerk reaction yeah of course we have a good life right but she actually paused and thought about it and she started to list i do think we have a good life because we have a great relationship with our kids they still want to talk with us and spend time with us You know, we are able to contribute to causes that we deeply believe in because now we have the resources to do that.

And we've planned for giving all these years, even when we didn't have much. So we've prepped our lives in such a way that, and we said, hey, we have enough to be comfortable. We are blessed to be in that situation. We don't, you know, we've always agreed that we will never live.

a lifestyle that's consistent with our income. We always want to be less than that so we could stay generous in our lives. So all those kinds of, she started listening. She goes, yeah, I think we actually do have a good life.

And for me, that was all the affirmation. I don't need positive reviews on my books or, you know, those are all appreciated. But, you know, I think. To be able to hear that kind of affirmation from the person who's closest to you in life is a special place to be.

And so for me, that was kind of like the moment where I said, okay, maybe we have lived a lot of these things out. And it's me just simply reflecting and organizing, even with all my deficiencies and gaps and shortfalls, all those things are still coexisting, but there may be enough there, there. to help others kind of design the type of life that might be beneficial for them. That's fascinating.

I mean, what a scary moment and vulnerable moment. Frankly, I would use the word vulnerable, even though it's with someone who you deeply love. Yeah, I mean, that's a directional conversation in your life. Yeah, it is for sure.

Yeah, fascinating. So what advice do you have for someone listening to this podcast? And I think it's whether they're brand new to entrepreneurship or they're new to the business world, they're experiencing the business world, but first time entrepreneurs or somewhere, you know, any kind of combination of those two. Where do you put the needle on the record in this process?

Yeah, I would say, remember, life is very cyclical. And I think that's why this framework works is you could use this, leverage this framework, whether you are a 22 year old graduating. from college, which I think would be a great time to read a book like this to kind of plan ahead. But you could be a 65-year-old entering retirement and thinking about the next chapter where you may need to spark some new ideas on how you want to reframe how you live life.

So I think the beauty of life is that we'll have many moments where we'll go back to spark or many moments when we're really truly thinking about our influence, however small or large that may be. And so... I would encourage people like, look, all of us need external voices and people to kind of speak into how we're engaging life. But the core message here is twofold.

One is human agency. Yeah, tell us more about that. Yeah, I think the reason I wrote the title as design your good life versus build your good life or create your good life is because design implies some intentional thinking. some intentional actions and behaviors.

And I think that's what good design does. And so for me is really when a person chooses autonomy, chooses their own agency, something powerful happens. Not only does it create a physical reaction in your brain, where it actually can give you more longevity, it can give you more energy. It can raise your morale because you're going to start to see things happen for you because you take a proactive posture towards life.

Because life just happens sometimes. And we all kind of may find ourselves over months or years drifting away from really the person we thought we were wanting to be because it's just hard. Most of our world is... trying to get us to align to things that are existing, whether it's a particular culture in a workplace or a system.

And I think when we let go of autonomy, whether it's through technology, you know, as you know better than most, like as we hand over tasks to AI, for example, it's possible that we start giving it other things that are truly human for the sake of speed or convenience. And so this book is reminding readers to say, look, you still have a life that you can choose to design. The alternative is you'll end up with a life that you had no desire designing or someone else had a desire to design for you.

And so for me, the message of the book is, look, control what you can control. Invest in things that really matter to you at the end of the day. And if you can do that, you'll probably end up with a life that's closer. to what you would deem good, whatever good is for the reader.

So with this, that goes very closely with agency and autonomy so close together. We have the ability to do this, design our lives, right? But meaning we have the autonomy to do it, but the agency is, it feels like an external internal balance to me, where you have the autonomy is external, the agency is internal, and combined is that secret sauce. Is that your intention or is that a crazy reading?

No, no, I think you're right. I really believe that as things accelerate in our current environment, whether culturally, geopolitically, or just through our technology engagement, it's going to be easier for us to lose our sense of agency as well as our ability to be who we desire to be. It's going to be so convenient to give that away. If I'm trying to develop a better relationship with my child, maybe I'll go directly to chat.

That's what a lot of, I've done it in the past or friends have done it. And while it may actually produce a response that may be healthier than your normal reaction, you lose that ability to develop critical thinking skills or emotional IQ because all of those things take time as you struggle over finding an answer. So your cognitive development slows down or you give that portion away for the sake of speed because you're in the moment. And I feel like as human beings, we may lose the ability to make better discernment or judgments.

Think more creatively when you think about creativity and AI. The level of new ideas that are produced by human beings are still in a really, I think, better place creatively. When it comes to creativity, there's a professor from, I think, University of South Australia who did research around creativity as it relates to design and AI right now. And he did a scale from zero to one, one being some of the most creative people on the planet, that level of creativity.

And so far, design and AI is still at maybe a 0. 25, given all of the various factors. It's an amateur designer. And I'm sure it'll get better, but there's something.

about being human with your intuition, with your sense of discernment, all those various factors can produce new ideas in a way that maybe machines is still learning how to produce. So it goes back to guard that. That's an important part of being human. And we should really celebrate the fact that we're fully human.

And don't let go of some opportunities to work through hard things. I don't know if you've seen it in your students. The information is there, but the process develops our brains and our minds. And that's the part that I'm saying, hey, let's not let go of that, even as we leverage technology.

I think that's so important. It's that we give up our own agency for the speed of efficiency. And that's the piece I want to capture, because that's exactly what's happening. Speed is valued over critical thinking.

And that's the paradigm that AI is reinforcing. There's deep implications for that, and we won't get into them here. But I think if we have a strong sense of the life we want to live, it will make us more intentional about what we hand to AI and what we don't. And it will make us happier too, which is like research is very supportive that people who move with a high level of that type of like personal agency and be able to make choices proactively in their life are generally happier and more fulfilled.

And to your point, in the name of efficiency or convenience, let's not give that up. That's, I think, vitally important, even as we lead technology. Well, Charles, this has been really insightful and I appreciate you. (Free users can only transcribe the first 30 minutes.

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