Think Fast w/ Jody Thompson

Get ready for the most value per minute in podcasting. This is a shareable mini episode that I call ThinkFast. I ask the guest 10 rapid fire questions and they have to answer them as quickly as they can. Let's get into it.

Today on ThinkFast, my guest is the superhero known as Princess Jodi Thompson. She's known as her Royal Highness of the work culture. Her superpower, as you might guess, is work culture. She understands all about it.

But today, her superpower is going to need to be speed, specifically thinking fast. Welcome to Think Fast, Princess Jodi Thompson. Thank you. Let's get started.

Here's how it's going to work. I'm going to ask you 10 rapid fire questions. And your mission today is to answer with the first thought that pops into your head. So it's about thinking fast.

The show is called Think Fast, not Speak Fast. You can speak in your normal tone and your normal pace. You can take as much time as you need to answer every question. but the answer to the question should be the first thing that pops in your head.

Are you ready to begin? I'm ready. Question one, what is everything? What is one thing that everyone listening to this episode should go and do today?

They should go watch the Taylor Swift heiress tour movie. My wife would love you so much. Question two, what is the lesson that you wish you learned earlier in life? I wish I had learned that nothing is out of my reach and that if I just tried and moved forward every day, no matter what I'm tripping over, that would be the best.

That would have been the best for me. All right. Question three. If you could download one person, dead or alive, you could download their entire knowledge, wisdom, and memories to add to your own, and you can carry it with you for the rest of your life.

Who would it be? Can it be somebody that's alive? Yeah, alive or dead. Okay.

Daniel Pink. That's a good one. uh question four uh and by the way do you want to elaborate on that um in his book drive he talks about autonomy mastery and purpose and i'm really into that because he's he sees the future as well and sees where we're all confused in the workplace and so reading his book um was something that really changed me in my thinking and he's writing more books so there you have it yeah it's good Great thought, Lear. All right.

Question number four. What is a negative experience that happened to you that you are happy that it happened to you? When I was working at a Fortune 100 company and I was trying to do adaptive change as an experiment, I was taken into my boss's office and he told me that I was going to be put on a performance plan. Even though the teams I was working with were outpacing the rest of the organization in productivity, engagement, all the things we measure.

And the reason I was put on a performance plan is because I was making human resources uncomfortable. And at that moment, I felt like my head was going to blow up. And he also said, and people are calling you a zealot. Now that was a turning point for me because when I talked to the head of global innovation at the company and I said they calling me a zealot he did like the happy dance in his office because more people trying to make real change are often called names and put in their place and all these things So he knew I was onto something And so even though it was a horrible experience, it ended up being validating to what I was trying to do.

That's amazing. That's a good story. Question five, if you could go, you had to go back to the start of your entire career and do it all over again. What are the first five, the first three to five things that you would do first?

Oh, goodness. Give me as many or as few as you want, but like, what are the things that if you went back to the beginning of your career and you were starting over from scratch, but you could give yourself a to-do list of where to direct your time and energy, what would you do? So when I started my career, I was in a fitness administration, long way back when, you know, the fitness whole fitness craze was starting. And I think that at that time, I wasn't very tuned in to what was going to be financially feasible, to train enough people, talk to enough people, you know, create a viable business.

And so I think that I could have listened to people more, had people come in and talk to me about what I'm thinking, give me feedback. I think I just kind of was a lone wolf. And I did, I needed to connect better. So one, I don't know everything I need to ask questions to I need to connect better to people that can help me move forward.

and three is this really what i want to do that's a good one so yeah i did a lot of different things so i think change management when i got into large-scale organizational change technical change um it started to plant that seed of how adaptive change is different and how we can not just you know move a cube from one place to another in a building but how can we really uplift people's spirits and, um, help people do their best in every area of their life. So I really got into that.

That was my favorite thing and still is. Uh, question six. Do they get easier? Um, it's kind of structured to keep you on your toes.

Like I don't want it to go in a predictable, uh, kind of way where you're like, oh, they're getting easier or they're getting harder. Oh, now we're getting into work. Like the kind of the purpose of think fast is that you should not see where anything is coming from. Yeah.

Well, I feel that way. So that's good. Okay, good. So we're winning.

It's working. Good. Well then this should send you in a different direction. Question six, if you had to pick one, which fictional character would you bring to life?

Well, the first thing that came to my head was Bugs Bunny. interesting no i have no idea why it would make life so much more entertaining the ears you know yeah i don know bugs funny i guess okay nothing wrong with that uh question seven if you could travel back to a single point in your life and say one single sentence to yourself when would you travel back to and what would you say I would travel back to when I was in college. And I would tell myself, you're too young to get married.

There's a lot more you should be doing first. That's what I would have told myself. that's such a good answer i honestly in just a little sidebar from our our rapid fires here i honestly expect everyone to say i would go back in time and tell myself to buy bitcoin or something like that like so yeah the back to the future biff thing like yeah that's ultimately what i think most people would say so any answer is a deviation from that is always very welcomed and interesting. All right, good.

Question eight, what will destroy humanity? Humanity is going to destroy humanity. Question nine, what will save humanity? I think about John Lennon when you're saying that, and I think about him saying, give peace a chance.

you think there's something in the human you know i don't know if you call it the genome or whatever you call it that we're missing and if we don't connect to that and look at the world as a place where we're all people all trying to live our best lives how can we all be part of that it's kind of pie in the sky but when you look at in the sky yeah but because of everything that's happening across the globe and I won't get into politics, but we're, we're barreling in a direction that's won't be sustainable 20 years from now.

Yeah. So we need to take a screeching halt and really look at, um, what we're doing and is it the right thing? Well, the good news is question 10, because we might have the means to fix this. So set up for the question, have you seen movies in the Marvel Cinematic Universe?

Are you familiar with Iron Man and Endgame and Avengers and things like that? Oh, too bad. I've never watched any of those. Okay, great.

It's important just because I have to set up the question for you then. So in the Marvel Cinematic Universe and the Marvel Comic Book Universe, there's something known as the Infinity Gems. They are six different gems that control different aspects of the universe essentially and there is this glove that the mad titan thanos has come together with called the infinity gauntlet that can hold these stones and what it allows for is when you snap your fingers anything that your mind can conceive can happen across time space reality mind the soul anything you can literally rewrite everything about the universe thanos uses it to wipe out half of the life in the uh in the universe uh because of resource constraints, kind of a silly plan.

But the bottom line is, is that the holder of this glove, when they choose to can snap their fingers and change anything about reality about anything Okay Now here the catch of the whole situation is that unless you an eternal presuming you a mortal, when you snap your fingers, anything would happen, but it would cost you your life. Now here's the thing. Went to a garage sale, went to a garage sale recently, picked up the infinity gauntlet. Some old lady just thought it was a glove.

I have this and I'd like to offer it to you. And the question is, if I offer it to you, do you put it on and snap your fingers. And if you do snap your fingers, what happens after you snap? We heal the planet.

I snap my fingers and our climate catastrophe is halted. And as a society, global society, we always care for the planet. And everything we do, is it helping the planet or not? And boy, what innovations could come out of that.

Totally worth trading your life for. You can tell I'm worried about the climate. Yeah, I share that concern. Where are you, Jeff?

I'm in Philly, yeah. Oh, okay. Yeah. Yep.

We haven't had any snow here in Minneapolis, St. Paul. So we had like a dust, a dusting. And what is the date?

It's kind of concerning, January. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

It's concerning. I live on a lake. It's usually frozen over by now. Not at all.

Yeah. It's terrifying. I love snowboarding. So I want to get to use my new snowboard before no more snow.

Yeah. Right. I know. Think about the people that they're living as to, you know, they clear snow.

Yeah. Wild. Yep, there isn't any. Well, this episode has been Think Fast.

I've been your host, Jeff Gibbard. You have been my guest, Jodi Thompson. And this podcast has been shareable. So tell me, what was most valuable or useful for you in this episode?

Send me a message or hit me up on social media. I'm easy to find, but there's links in the show notes just to make it easy. Seriously, I'd love to hear from you. If you enjoyed this episode, there's a couple things you could do, starting with subscribing to the show.

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It's built exclusively for brand new managers, and it's a handbook that will serve you well in your journey of leadership. just search for lovable leader wherever books are sold online and finally if you're interested in working with me or checking out any of my other projects go to jgibbard.com that link as well as every other link mentioned will be found in the show notes stay safe be kind and seriously share this episode with someone i'll see you on the next episode of shareable thanks for listening This podcast is part of the Shareable Podcast Network.

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