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How to Unlock the Key to Continuous Innovation with Tony Fadell

Lesson 4 from: The Chase Jarvis LIVE Show

Chase Jarvis

How to Unlock the Key to Continuous Innovation with Tony Fadell

Lesson 4 from: The Chase Jarvis LIVE Show

Chase Jarvis

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Lesson Info

4. How to Unlock the Key to Continuous Innovation with Tony Fadell

Lessons

Class Trailer
1

How to Find Your Purpose Through Grief and Loss with Tunde Oyeneyin

48:49
2

What is the Meaning of Life? with Tony Nader

1:17:18
3

Weirdness is the Key to Self Improvement with Marcus Buckingham

1:10:59
4

How to Unlock the Key to Continuous Innovation with Tony Fadell

41:57
5

Talent is Bullsh*t with Steven Pressfield

1:06:26
6

Finding Self When No One Is Looking with Jason Reynolds

59:50
7

Does Cold Water Exposure Really Have Scientific Backing with Dr. Mark Harper

56:15
8

Heal Your Past with Sheleana Aiyana

51:06
9

How An Unconventional Path Got Nabil Ayers To President Of One Of The Most Influential Music Labels

1:04:12
10

All the Hacks to Maximize Your Life with Chris Hutchins

1:08:02
11

Happiness is an Inside Job with Dr. Rangan Chatterjee

1:19:58
12

The Power of Regret with Daniel Pink

49:35
13

Data-Driven Life Decisions with Seth Stephens-Davidowitz

1:01:26
14

Escape Purgatory of the Mundane With Radical Confidence with Lisa Bilyeu

1:09:58
15

Transform the Quality of Your Life with Tony Robbins

51:37
16

Strengthen Your Intuition & Unlock Your Inner Wisdom with Amber Rae

1:00:13
17

Make Your Message Heard with Victoria Wellman

1:13:34
18

Susan Cain: How Sorrow and Longing Make Us Whole

1:09:31
19

Can Food Turn Us Into Geniuses with Max Lugavere

1:21:16
20

Peace Is a Practice with Morgan Harper Nichols

1:14:56
21

Creativity Hates Complacency with Maria Brito

1:10:34
22

A Love Letter to Human Potential with Kate Robinson

54:14
23

How to Build Confidence and Be More Social with Vanessa Van Edwards

1:01:21
24

Trauma Is Wreaking Havoc On Our Lives with Gabby Bernstein

51:59
25

Take The Leap, Start a Business with Payal Kadakia

58:37
26

What Every Creator Should Know About NFTs with Tom Bilyeu

1:05:47
27

40 Seconds To Fame Or Failure with Apolo Ohno

45:52
28

Unlock the Power of Nonverbal Communication with Joe Navarro

1:03:28
29

Living Shouldn't Hurt with Aaron Alexander

1:20:24
30

Ego, Disrupted. How Buddhist Wisdom Meets Western Therapy with Dr. Mark Epstein

1:11:55
31

Words Can Take You Anywhere with Arianna Davis

53:00
32

Master Your Inner Voice with Dr. Ethan Kross

1:06:21
33

Accelerating 10,000 Hours to Mastery with James Altucher

1:09:49
34

Transform Your Mind in 12 Minutes a Day with Dr. Amishi Jha

1:15:57
35

Powerful Habits to Ease Anxiety and Boost Productivity with Mel Robbins

1:15:17
36

The Art of Self-Reinvention with Malcolm Gladwell

1:00:45
37

Creative Acts of Curious People with Sarah Stein Greenberg

1:10:01
38

Self-Discovery, Activism, and Rock & Roll with Stevie Van Zandt

57:56
39

Why Design Matters with Debbie Millman

1:07:04
40

Discover Work that Makes You Come Alive with Jonathan Fields

1:15:34
41

Releasing Trauma and Mastering Your Emotions with Jason Wilson

1:05:35
42

Food Saved Me with Danielle Walker

47:16
43

Changing Our Relationship with Rest with Chelsea Jackson Roberts

49:11
44

Retracing Passion to Build Lasting Career Success with Chris Bosh

54:27
45

Old School Photography + Other Musings with Kai Wong

41:52
46

Escalate and Evolve: A Blueprint for Career and Life with Ben Uyeda

1:08:44
47

The Stories That Hold Us Back with Jon Acuff

1:07:22
48

Poetry, Vulnerability and Finding Your Voice with Jericho Brown

1:13:40
49

What Does it Take to be Backable with Suneel Gupta

1:05:38
50

Unlocking Creativity, Courage and Success with Rebecca Minkoff

53:00
51

How To Heal From Your Past with Dr. Nicole LePera

1:13:54
52

That Will Never Work with Marc Randolph

1:12:06
53

The Real Cost of Your Dream Life with Rachel Rodgers

1:02:44
54

Your Network is Your Insurance Policy with Jordan Harbinger

1:24:15
55

Dream First, Details Later with Ellen Bennett

1:14:45
56

We're Never Going Back with Harley Finkelstein

1:01:47
57

How to Shatter Limitations and Achieve Your Dreams with Steven Kotler

1:08:10
58

The Creative Art of Attention with Julia Cameron

1:05:23
59

The Path Back to True Self with Martha Beck

59:45
60

Upgrade Your Brain and Learn Anything Quickly with Jim Kwik

1:21:22
61

The Urgent Need for Stoicism with Ryan Holiday

1:11:30
62

Delicious Food Doesn't Have to be Complicated with Julia Turshen

1:14:35
63

Netflix and the Culture of Reinvention with Erin Meyer

56:27
64

Stop Living On Autopilot with Antonio Neves

1:07:38
65

How to Tackle Fear and Live Boldly with Luvvie Ajayi Jones

59:42
66

Go from Underestimated to Unstoppable with Jamie Kern Lima

1:05:03
67

Hard Work + The Evolution of Self with Priyanka Chopra Jonas

36:36
68

The Power of Idealism with Samantha Power

1:34:35
69

Pushing the Limits with Extreme Explorer Mike Horn

1:22:54
70

Fast This Way with Dave Asprey

1:15:34
71

Uncomfortable Conversations with Emmanuel Acho

45:59
72

Why Conversation Matters with Rich Roll

1:24:17
73

Elevating Humanity Through Business with John Mackey

1:15:14
74

When Preparation Meets Opportunity with Paul Ninson

1:04:14
75

The Art of Practice with Christoph Niemann

1:12:18
76

Matthew McConaughey: Embracing Resistance & Catching Greenlights

1:19:38
77

Starve the Ego, Feed the Soul with Justin Boreta

1:25:32
78

Tiny Changes, Remarkable Results with James Clear

1:20:55
79

Badass Habits and Making Them Stick with Jen Sincero

1:06:12
80

Break Free from Self-Limiting Beliefs with Dr. Benjamin Hardy

1:09:18
81

Imposter Syndrome, Getting Unstuck and The Practice with Seth Godin

1:13:19
82

The Art of Curiosity and Lifelong Wisdom with Chip Conley

58:47
83

The Lost Art of Breath with James Nestor

1:03:15
84

The Art of Reinvention with Sophia Amoruso

1:03:59
85

Harness Kindness as Your Hidden Super Power with Adrienne Bankert

1:08:26
86

Heal the Soul, Restore the Calm with Stephan Moccio

1:28:19
87

Finding Resilience & Possibility with Guy Raz

1:08:47
88

Truth, Fear, and How to do Better with Luvvie Ajayi Jones

1:18:22
89

The Future is Faster Than You Think with Peter Diamandis

57:56
90

Music, Writing, and Time For Change with Nabil Ayers

1:20:38
91

Freedom to Express Who We Are with Shantell Martin

1:10:34
92

So You Want to Talk about Race with Ijeoma Oluo

1:10:47
93

Photographing History with Pete Souza

1:16:35
94

Maybe You Should Talk to Someone with Lori Gottlieb

58:51
95

Never Settle with Mario Armstrong

1:38:11
96

The Science of Making Work Not Suck with Adam Grant

1:15:36
97

Street Photography + Capturing Truth with Steve John Irby

1:10:54
98

Life, Writing, and Real Talk with Roxane Gay

1:05:57
99

Steve Aoki: Creativity, Community and No Days Off

50:57
100

The Power of Passion and Perseverance with Angela Duckworth

1:08:25
101

Know What Drives You with Michael Gervais

1:05:20
102

The Code of the Extraordinary Mind with Vishen Lakhiani

59:07
103

Risk, Fear, and the Art of Chill with Jimmy Chin

1:13:51
104

Personal Growth and Understanding with Citizen Cope

1:16:21
105

Living Life on Purpose with Jay Shetty

1:20:06
106

Get Out of Your Own Way with Dave Hollis

1:08:10
107

Hope in A Sea of Endless Calamity with Mark Manson

1:15:12
108

How to Find Yourself with Glennon Doyle

1:10:16
109

Make It Til You Make It with Owen Smith

1:20:50
110

Surf, Survival, and Life on the Road with Ben Moon

1:08:01
111

Create the Change You Seek with Jonah Berger

1:00:22
112

Workplace Revolution with Amy Nelson

1:05:16
113

Rethink Impossible with Colin O'Brady

1:29:31
114

Good Enough is Never Good Enough with Corey Rich

1:25:24
115

Say Yes To What You Want with Chris Burkard

1:22:54
116

Finding Stillness In A Fast Paced World with Ryan Holiday

1:08:00
117

Everything is Figureoutable with Marie Forleo

43:50
118

The Art of Being Yourself with Elizabeth Gilbert

53:41
119

Creativity, Comedy, and Never Settling with Nate Bargatze

1:37:12
120

Personal + Career Reinvention with Jasmine Star

1:01:18
121

Stay Creative, Focused and True to Yourself with Austin Kleon

1:12:25
122

Ramit Sethi 'I Will Teach You To Be Rich' book launch with Chase Jarvis

1:07:17
123

You Don't Need to Be Rich to Live Rich with David Bach

1:09:51
124

Harnessing Your Human Nature for Success with Robert Greene

1:04:28
125

Addiction, Reinvention, and Finding Ultra with Endurance Athlete Rich Roll

1:07:41
126

Disruption, Reinvention, and Reimagining Silicon Valley with Arlan Hamilton

1:12:31
127

The Intersection of Art and Service with Rainn Wilson

1:03:25
128

Your Mind Can Transform Your Life with Tom Bilyeu

1:30:19
129

Do Something Different with Jason Mesnick

1:02:38
130

Less Phone, More Human with Dan Schawbel

1:07:40
131

Startup to $15 Billion: Finding Your Life's Work with Shopify's Harley Finkelstein

1:12:42
132

It Doesn't Have to be Crazy at Work with Jason Fried

1:49:02
133

Love, Service, and Living Your Truth with Danielle LaPorte

1:11:05
134

How to Do Work That Matters for People Who Care with Seth Godin

1:10:56
135

Happiness Through Gratitude with AJ Jacobs

1:12:54
136

You Are Your Habits with Julien Smith

1:03:40
137

Maximizing Creativity + Navigating the Messy Middle with Scott Belsky

1:09:10
138

The Most Important Conversation About Life… Death with Michael Hebb

1:13:38
139

Redemption and a Thirst for Change with Scott Harrison

54:58
140

Imagination and The Power of Change with Beth Comstock

1:12:29
141

Success, Community, and his cameo in Parks & Recreation with NBA All Star Detlef Schrempf

1:02:02
142

1,000 Paths to Success with Jack Conte

1:07:32
143

Unconventional Ways to Win with Rand Fishkin

1:37:49
144

How to Sell Without Selling Out with Ryan Carson

1:05:45
145

Be the Artist You Want to Work With with Nigel Barker

47:12
146

Your Story Is Your Power with Elle Luna

1:33:53
147

Celebrating Your Weirdness with Thomas Middleditch

1:14:04
148

Persevering Through Failure with Melissa Arnot Reid

1:33:23
149

Go Against the Grain with David Heinemeier Hansson

1:18:07
150

Stamina, Tenacity and Craft with Eugene Mirman

1:17:15
151

Create Work That Lasts with Todd Henry

1:06:50
152

Make Fear Your Friend

08:08
153

Tame Your Distracted Mind with Adam Gazzaley

1:12:08
154

Why Grit, Persistence, and Hard Work Matter with Daymond John

1:05:15
155

How to Launch Your Next Project with Product Hunts with Ryan Hoover

1:11:15
156

Lessons in Business and Life with Richard Branson

45:05
157

Embracing Your Messy Beautiful Life with Glennon Doyle

1:27:29
158

How to Create Work That Lasts with Ryan Holiday

1:20:25
159

5 Seconds to Change Your Life with Mel Robbins

1:14:53
160

Break Through Anxiety and Stress Through Play with Charlie Hoehn

1:08:10
161

The Quest For True Belonging with Brene Brown

1:29:41
162

Real Artists Don't Starve with Jeff Goins

1:19:16
163

Habits for Ultra-Productivity with Jessica Hische

56:18
164

Using Constraints to Fuel Your Best Work Ever with Scott Belsky

1:21:07
165

The Intersection of Art and Business with AirBnB's Joe Gebbia

1:19:56
166

Build a World-Changing Business with Reid Hoffman

1:19:31
167

How Design Drives The World's Best Companies with Robert Brunner

1:05:33
168

Why Creativity Is The Key To Leadership with Sen. Cory Booker

53:06
169

How To Change The Lives Of Millions with Scott Harrison

1:16:14
170

How To Build A Media Juggernaut with Piera Gelardi

1:21:04
171

Transform Your Consciousness with Jason Silva

1:08:02
172

The Formula For Peak Performance with Steven Kotler

1:01:40
173

How What You Buy Can Change The World with Leila Janah

1:04:10
174

Overcoming Fear & Self-Doubt with W. Kamau Bell

47:44
175

The Unfiltered Truth About Entrepreneurship with Adam Braun

1:21:36
176

Build + Sustain A Career Doing What You Love with James Mercer of The Shins

51:58
177

How Design Can Supercharge Your Business with Yves Béhar

33:40
178

Conquer Fear & Self-Doubt with Amanda Crew

1:29:39
179

Become A Master Communicator with Vanessa Van Edwards

1:19:52
180

How iJustine Built Her Digital Empire with iJustine

1:08:05
181

How To Be A World-Class Creative Pro with Joe McNally

1:05:19
182

How To Stop Waiting And Start Doing with Roman Mars

43:43
183

Gut, Head + Heart Alignment with Scott Dadich

38:17
184

If Not Now, When? with Debbie Millman

55:31

Lesson Info

How to Unlock the Key to Continuous Innovation with Tony Fadell

When you're doing something new, when you're doing something the world's never seen, most people will misunderstand it, 'cause they don't have any model to compare it to. And so either, sometimes you can talk about what you're doing and other times you can't and they're just like, they're doing some crazy thing and they can't relate to it until they see it all in its fully formed thing. And you say, this is it. And they get to interact with it. All right. That little nugget of brilliance was from legendary, Tony Fadell. Tony is the creator of many things like the iPhone, the iPod and the Nest Thermostat, one of the top product designers in the world. So I welcome him this week to the Chase Jarvis LIVE Show. We talk about all kinds of things, including his new book, "Build", which covers all sorts of building, not just products and features, but how to build yourself, others and teams. If you're a leader, this show is for you. Enjoy Tony Fadell. (lively music) (audience applauds) We...

love you. Tony Fadell, Thank you so much for joining. Welcome to the show. Chase. Great to be here. Awesome. I'm so glad to have some time with you. Likewise. And for some time now I've been digging into your new book called, "Build", but I always like to start off the show for the handful of people who might not be familiar with you and your work, orient us around, you know, how you describe yourself to others, what kind of work you're interested in and you know, why you think you may be a guest on the show, but just generally, what are you interested in and what are some of the descriptors that you associate with yourself, your career, your past, how ought the audience be aware of you? Oh, wow. Let's see. Well, I'm not young, so there's a lot of things. (jovial laughter) So let's see first, I guess I would say I'm an engineer by training, by education. So a computer engineer and I went on to, you know, design and engineer, all kinds of different products early on in my career in the first 10 years in Silicon Valley. But I'm really a designer and inventor of the iPod, a co-inventor of the iPhone. And then I co-founded a company called Nest, which was doing thermostats and other home electronic connected products. And now most recently I'm a New York Times bestselling author of, "Build". So lots of different things and, oh, well I forgot. And I'm also an investor. So I invest in deep tech companies, disruptive deep tech companies around the world, helping the climate, our societies, and our health and spending a lot of time on that. And the reason why the book happened was because I had all the same questions from all the companies that we mentor. And so I decided to write it all down. So I didn't have to drone on and tell the same stories, hundreds and hundreds of times. So that was the impetus for the book, besides honoring my mentors and all the people who helped me through that career and that transition, through all of those now over 30 years of designing and building and creating companies and all those things. Obviously that is a resume that few people can match. Those are some of the most important and game changing products of our generation. But I actually don't wanna start off with the products. I wanna start off with something today in our conversation that you just mentioned, which is this idea of mentors. And I believe, having started online learning companies like Creative Live, making large use of the internet personally, prior to that, I believe that there's this idea of mentorship at scale, in part that's what this podcast has been about for more than a decade and largely books. You put your very best ideas, I don't wanna put words into your mouth about how many years you've been doing this, but a lifetime I'll say of information into this book, such that other people can take that information, they don't have to touch the stove to know it's hot, you can tell them and save them a lot of (indistinct). (soft chuckle) So if we enter on the premise of mentorship, what have been some of your biggest takeaways from having mentors generally, but also some very specific advice, if you're willing to get into that, that you've received, having had the mentors that you've had. Well, you know, mentorship, I'll tell you, is really so incredibly important. And luckily I had my grandfather as a mentor, when I was very young, starting when I was three and four, and that wasn't just having a grandfather, my grandfather was an educator and he helped to put tools in my hands and my brother's hands. My brother's just one year younger than me. And literally we would go out and be repairing things and fixing houses and painting and doing stuff with electricity and gas engines and just getting hands on, right at a young age, getting that empowerment, that agency to say, "Wait a second, this is the world. And you can do stuff with it". And it's when you're really young and to much to the chagrin of my grandmother and my mom, when we have power tools and cutting, you know, saws and stuff like that and we're just young kids, but to have that kind of empowerment is so valuable. And then along the way, because I knew that really, or I felt it, I didn't know, I wasn't that conscious yet. I had probably only 10% of a brain, but it was like, I was always looking for that kind of help as I went through my career. And somehow the vibrations of the universe came together and I was able to link up with different people who wanted to help me or my ideas in some way, without financial reward throughout my career, even in high school. And so that's been such a, how can I say, like I said, empowerment, but it also brought you confidence, right? When you have somebody who has wisdom or experience to a certain level and they see something in you or in your ideas and they go, "Okay, you're on the right track. Keep trying these things", and just encouragement, right? Encouragement, helping pick you up when it's really complicated. And there's so much noise of, when you do things for the first time, you're like, "Could I do it this way or this way"? There hundreds of different ways of doing something, they could help to narrow down that wide field of things when you just really don't know what's that perspective. And, "Build", is all about that, is trying to narrow down all of this noise and going, "Just focus on this. This is what matters". And what really matters. And my grandfather never knew anything about technology beyond, you know, normal power tools, regular tools, not electronics. He never touched a computer in his life. It was all about human nature. Yeah. The best mentors I've had, they're not the smartest technical people. Sure, there are those, but these are people who really understood people, organizations, teams, and all the things that come together to create something, 'cause you don't usually just create in a vacuum. You're not just the sole thing. Even this book was done with a team, right. You're not just from the, you know, the ideas obviously are mine and the words are mine, but all of the other things around it. Yeah. So having that mentored, having that so you can focus on the things that really matter, the different thing that you're trying to materials where all the other stuff can be like cut away. That's just so important to me and has been an enabler for me for my career. Well, I'm deeply intrigued. First of all, again, congratulations on the book. It's incredible, New York Times's best seller. Also, congratulations there. Obviously you've built many of the most important products of our lives, this idea that music, a thousand songs in your pocket, collaborating with one of the all time great entrepreneurs of our time and the iPhone obviously transformative and popular culture. It's 15 years old today. Today. Today? Today was the first shipment of an iPhone. Can you remember 15 years ago? And all the people around the world at least lined up to get 'em, 15 years today. Yeah. It's today, this is a good day. All right. (light laughter) I just think this is even a little richer already. Congratulations to you. But you know, the concept of building these products as you articulated in sort of the answer to that first question, you articulated that there's a relationship between mentors and there's team and all of these things are building, right? That's the undercurrent for all of this stuff is build, the title of the book. In my world, I use the word create, these are all creative acts. You're creating a team of mentors, a peer group. But I was fascinated with the fact that you started the book around building yourself, that's the chapter or the first part of the book, which has got four chapters, I think, is building yourself. And I'm wondering if you can talk to us, maybe even preach for a moment. Okay. Preach. Yeah. The role that you feel like you took in building yourself and if you were going to provide some advice just in the very sort of the fabric, the understanding what it means to actually be a work in progress, to be constantly building and revising. And there's things like adult, you talk about adulthood and having heroes and don't look down. There are a handful of topics within that, but just talk to me about the process of building oneself as perhaps the most valuable creative exercise that we will ever endeavor. Yeah, no, I look back and writing the book and everything. You kinda look and you go, "Whoa, wait a second. All this stuff happened". And so building yourself is really, you're always a work in progress, until you pass, until you're off this planet or under the planet, whatever you are in the planet. (soft chuckle) You're always building yourself, right. From when you come outta the womb and you're always learning. And if you stop, if you decide, oh, after school or whatever it is, okay, I got this thing and you're just kinda going through the motions, that isn't living. A true, for me, I should say, is the curiosity of life that happens every day, whether you're 20, 12 or 120, these things are like, to me, it's oxygen for my brain? And when you look back, when I look back at my life, I really have 10 year chunks. And I have like version 1.0 of myself, version 2.0, version 3.0. And so for me, where it really all came together in building myself was, and I think it was right around when we all have more or less fully formed brains at age 24, 25, 26. That's when it really happened. When real, you could say it's version two or maybe version three of myself really happened where you become aware, really not just about your passions, but you become rational. And you start thinking about your passions and go, "Wait a second, maybe some of those passions aren't so smart", 'cause you didn't have a full brain to go off and think about it or your relationships with other people, your relationships with yourself, all of those things. And I had two big things that happened at the same time. One was me having a fully formed brain. And then two was the absolute spectacular disaster that was General Magic. So General Magic was a company trying to make the iPhone 15 years too early, without all the right technology, without a phone. But it had the right ideas, big concepts, but the society wasn't ready to take it. The technology wasn't ready, we wouldn't even know what we were really trying to accomplish. We were just making something cool, that we thought was cool, but it wasn't really solving any problems at that point. And so having that spectacular failure, plus my brain and me saying, "I gotta press the reset button", because I was so far off of being balanced as an individual, I was socially unhealthy, mentally unhealthy, physically unhealthy, that I was like, and my brain was there and said, " Um, um, um, okay". And then I had to reboot my whole system. Like it wasn't just a upgrade an operating system. It was like a whole new operating system, and going from the Apple II to the Mac or something like that. And that was really where the big work was, where you learned about not just the thing you're passionate about, but the human nature and how they come together, your human nature, building yourself and then how you relate to the world. Right? And so that was one version. And then the next version after that was tons, that was lots of failure then. And then the next version was being really a leader, a true leader in that sense. And then after that it continues on. Then there was a being a father and all that other stuff. But I think you have to continue to keep learning and there will always be versions of yourself. And if you're not, then your problem, you're not trying, you're not trying to find a new version of yourself because you can always improve. You can always find new things and there's new ways of being and new things of learning because not everything your parents and the environment you grew up taught you was all the right things. Right. And I'm learning today as I live in France or I live in Indonesia and I find new social systems and that stuff, it's just, as I said, it's oxygen for my brain and it helps how I design and how I think every day by continuing to build yourself. Well, I love this idea of being perpetually in development. And one of the things that I find striking that I think is very relevant to this conversation and I'm dying to get your take on. This is sort of my headline question here is really around you've invented some amazing things, let alone yourself. We're gonna put a pin in that because we realize that everyone, you Tony, have invented yourself or created yourself or build to use the word, the title of your book and the chapters that are related to that. You built yourself. But in building, whether it's yourself or products, talk to me about the role. Talk to us, the listeners here, about the role of being wildly misunderstood, 'cause you wanted to make the pocket crystal, right at Big Magic. You wanted to have this idea and the idea that you had for that product was so ahead of its time, even things like the iPod, a thousand songs in your pocket, or the iPhone and yourself, there's some role that being willing to be misunderstood in order to pursue either the product that you're trying to create, whether that product is an iPhone or Tony Fadell, 3.0, talk to me about the role that that plays and how you managed it in this process. I'm fascinated, as the builder of some of the greatest products, what role that played for you? And I think it might be insightful for our audience. Wow. Okay. That's a great question. So when you're doing something new, when you're doing something the world's never seen, most people will misunderstand it 'cause they don't have any model to compare it to. And so either, sometimes you can talk about what you're doing and other times you can't and they're just like, they're doing some crazy thing and they can't relate to it until they see it all in its fully formed thing. And you say, this is it. And they get to interact with it. By just talking about it, unless you're talking to another geek who really understands that kind of nuance or whatever, people are just like, huh? You know, everyone's always looking at me like, you're nuts, you're crazy. You're like, whatever. And it's having that gut reaction, that you can envision what that thing looks like. Even though you might not be able to articulate it yet, 'cause you're still working on it. You go, oh and it's that productive struggle of like, ugh I gotta get it out there. And try to talk about, put some words around it. But when you see it, for me, at least, when I see it and I see that vision of what it could be, that's what drives you. And then what you're trying to say is, I believe it's gonna revolutionary. I just don't have the right words to describe it yet. And what I've learned is the sooner you can be understood while you're in development, not at the end, but while, or maybe even close at the beginning, you might not know all the details, but the more you can be understood at the beginning to the right people, not a wide range, just a set of smart people who are not just geeks, but wanna think about customers and think about themselves possibly as the customer, they're really smart. And you can explain it to them in enough simple terms, not geeky terms. And if they get it, you're probably on the right path and you're doing something that's so new and that, because you've worked so much on it, you can have a better kind of Occam's razor of when you're making decisions along the route to get it out to market, whatever that is. And at General Magic, we knew we were doing something cool, but we didn't really spend enough time thinking about who it was for, why with the prop pain, we were trying to solve the super powers. We were trying to bring all those things. So we were just kind of all in it. And we thought we all understood. We understood the technology to a certain extent, but we didn't understand what we were building. It was just this, Ooh, this is cool. Right. And that's the reason why it failed, was because we just kept pleasing ourselves in a way, but without articulating what it was. So we were misunderstanding each other, even on the team. We didn't all know what we were doing because there was no real good articulation of what it was. And so what I've learned through all this is, the earlier you can do that and spend more time in that piece, the faster the thing can come out. And the more, I wouldn't say confident you are, but the more decisive you can be to get it to whatever state it wants to be, that you've envisioned because you've really thought through the customer journey and how you're gonna describe it to people. To invoke our sort of the last point that we were swapping ideas around this idea of building yourself. What role does this idea play of articulating what it is you're building for products? You have very clear examples there. How about with respect to yourself? Do you feel like your ability to help other people in your life, your parents, your spouses, teachers, mentors, how important is it to frame this vision for yourself? You talked about being shaped very early with your grandfather. How important was that shaping and then your future articulation of wanting to be involved in designing products and whatnot. What role did that play in becoming the successful creator that you are? Well, you know, again, the first 10, 15 years was not very much success. So you had to learn through doing, but I think that, this might be the wrong kind of analogy, but you think about it and you go, you know, when you go to AA, alcoholics anonymous, not that I was there, but you know the first thing is admitting that you have an issue so that you can, right. So I think it's really understanding that there's a problem. And you're trying to solve that problem. Whether that's for yourself or it's in a product or whatever and you're saying, something's not right here. I need to go and you look in the mirror and go figure out what's not right. And so you can start to say, "Here's what doesn't feel right". 'Cause it usually starts with emotion. Yeah. And then you can start to put logic around it, but you gotta say, "Ah, something doesn't feel right. It's not working. Why is it not working"? And you gotta use the rational part of your brain to kind of use it as a mirror to look back and then you can grasp those feelings and start to put some structure around it to help you, "Oh, I need to do this now. I need to do that now". Right? A lot of times there's these like simple tests, like do you have the right set of friends or are you doing the right thing for your health? And you kind of do these assessments to find out where you're at. And so you can start to ascertain what you need to do to kind of look into yourself and then do that work to help grow yourself into that new way you want, you don't know what it is, but you know that you're gonna go into this unknown, but you know what your problem you're trying to solve, right. Just like you do with a product or a service or whatever you're trying to create. And so I think it's really acknowledging some feeling that's not right. And so that's where it all starts. And I always say that the best products are born out of pain and you get a pain killer. The same thing happens with you. You go through pain as an individual and then you go and try to figure out what it is to get rid of that pain. Not numb it, most people numb their pain. Yeah. They don't go and address it head on and go, "Okay, I'm gonna go and tackle this". For me at 25, I was incredibly overweight, I decided, okay. Yoga and meditation and thinking about how I'm exercising, thinking about how I'm eating and what I'm eating, thinking about, who I'm hanging out with and making sure I make time for that stuff. It was all of that stuff. And really just rebooting everything and actually asking myself questions about fundamental values and morals that I had that I was raised with and re-questioning all of that again and going, "Is that how I wanna live? Do I really believe that now? What do I need to learn to make sure I believe that", instead of blind faith, let's make sure, adopt it as it's your own, you weren't just given it, but you re-adopted it because you really believe in that. If that's making any sense to you. So thanks for that, Tony. That's brilliant. I wanna tweak our approach just a little bit here because we've been thinking about very sort of broad concepts like mentorship and knowing thyself and building ourself, building things generally. I wanna get very specific. And a small analogy, had dinner with Elon Musk. Everyone was asking him about space time and his crazy shit like that. And I was like, I'll tell you what I wanna know. I wanna know the difference between your Tesla and my Tesla, as an example. (jovial laughter) So I wanna shift gears similarly and say, Tony, you built the iPhone, right? I mean, this thing has largely transformed popular culture. I looked at it almost primarily, I'll say secondary, but almost primarily as a camera, being a photographer, it certainly has transformed photography. What was it like? And talk to me about this early vision of the Pocket Crystal, and then, joining Apple and inventing something, co-inventing one of the most popular devices to ever grace the planet. 'Cause we can understand a lot through the specific example. And if we shift from these general concepts to something very specific, so I'm hoping to understand early the intersection of these things, your vision of the Pocket Crystal, sort of, I guess, melding with Apple, wanting to build a product that having a sense that the world would go mobile. Can you take us behind the scenes and what that was like? Sure. So, you know, in 1989, 1990, Mark Pratt Andy Hertzfeld, Bill Atkinson, all got together around this concept of a Pocket Crystal. And if you look at the drawings, they're in the book online, it looks very, very similar to the iPhone or smartphones we have in our pockets today. All one sheet of glass with icons, it's really crazy to think how right on at least the form, the morphology is of the device. So in that early 1990s, when we were working on it, it took four or five years to actually bring it to market for the first time. And this was a product that had communications, mobile communications, but there was no internet. There was no mobile data network, like we know it today. There was hardly any cell phones. It had downloadable apps and games, you could, "could" could as in quote, purchase, travel on it, right. And even buy things. It had animated emojis, animojis, whatever you call 'em now, In 1992, 1993 it had a whole like how to hook things up to it. A whole bus that I got to work on with keyboards and mice and all kinds of other stuff like this was before the internet, before wifi, before just anybody even knew what online shopping was, all that stuff, even knew what email was. Most people didn't even email in 1991, 92. And it was all built around content, commerce and communications and community. So it was all of those things coming together in one device that was pocketable, hardly pocketable, but it had a touch screen. It didn't even have a real physical keyboard. That was something you could attach just like you could attach a keyboard to an iPad today. Right. And so we had all of these concepts and nobody had the problems we were solving, which was mobile entertainment, mobile communications, mobile browsing, and commerce like we had and community. So we had all of this stuff, but nobody knew what it was. We didn't even know what it was. We were just working on it. 'Cause we said, this was gonna be the new way of the future. Again, before the internet. So you fast forward to 15 years later. And then all of a sudden, boom, there's the iPhone. And so obviously the technology got much, much better. We had screens, like that one only had a gray scale screen, a really slow processor, da, da, da, da, da. But it was built all from the ground up. And to think that most, if not all, most of those concepts were on the thing. We didn't have a camera on it. Okay. We didn't have GPS yet. There was no wifi 'cause there was no wifi, but it had most of those things. And we were then solving the problems because people knew what browsing was. Right. They knew what email was. They knew what buying things online were. And from the iPod, they knew about entertainment on the go, all of your entertainment you wanted. So it took not just the technology to get better, but for society to understand it needed it. Right. And it's at least the early adopters feeling the pain of having to carry a laptop, an iPod and a cell phone. And those things merging together as one. And then coming together with the same similar kind of interface in terms of like just the, what was drawn in the Pocket Crystal thing, was just astounding. And when we were working on it, I just remember, oh my God, this is General Magic all over again. Like it just pop, pop, pop, pop, pop. And it was just like, this is amazing. Especially given the disaster that was General Magic. It was over a half a billion dollars was just lost. It was supposed to be this biggest thing that was gonna take down Microsoft. It was the craziest thing. There's a great movie about it that people should watch called, "The General Magic Movie". And it goes into all those details and you see where all those people went and me and other people from there, now people are working on the Apple watch and running the teams that do the Apple watch and eBay came outta there. So many things came outta there. And so it's just amazing how that if you even have the right idea, it can still flourish years later, even if you failed at it the first time. It's just about having all those pieces aligned, making sure that at least some people on the planet understand the problem you're trying to solve and feel the pain and go, "Yes, this is what I need". What was the thing that turned that painful failure of your original attempt, if you will, do you attribute anything to actually making it a success? Was it there a sticktuitiveness or was it you actually looking to be on a product development team that had this level of ambition or awareness or is there anything you can attribute to that, your personal skills or was it someone else seeing a vision in you, someone else seeing the thing, "your failed attempt". And I use that in quotes because it could hardly be considered a failure if that helps Steve see what was possible with you to be able to recruit you to build these products. Like what do you attribute to turning your first flaming failure into a not soon thereafter, but eventually a success? Well, sticktuitiveness, you brought it up, stick with it. And so when I left General Magic, I said here's the things that I thought were right about General Magic and this is when the failure was happening at General Magic. And I was like, "Oh, wait a second. I'm gonna reboot this device. I'm gonna come up with my own concept for what I think the device should be". So I was like, it's gotta keyboard. It's gotta be built for mobile professionals, not consumers. It's gotta be much more of a productivity device, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And so I went and pitched that to Phillips Electronics and Phillips said, "Yes, that sounds great. Now you build it". I had never run a team. I had my own little startups in college and stuff and in high school, but I never had built a team in a real product. I was part of a team and I was like, "Your idea, now you go build it. I was like, "Oh my God". And I was 25. And I was like, "Okay". And so this was that it started on that journey. Whereas everyone was going off to do internet startups. I was just doing this other thing. People said, "You're crazy". And I'm like, "No, this has to exist". So I just wanted it to materialize in the world and take those ideas and start to build on them. And so I did that part of Phillips. And then I went to do my own startup, which was the precursor to the iPod and then continue to do the device that became the iPod. And then it morphed into the iPhone. So this was just one long trajectory of something that I believed so much because I saw what it could be. It was just the timing wasn't right. And the technology wasn't right. So I just stuck with it. And then the stuff at Phillips was a critical success, not a commercial success for Phillips. Yeah. Because of Phillips, but it was just going and going. It's gonna get there. And so that is to me really heartwarming that we had the right ideas, they had the right ideas. They turned me onto those ideas and I was able to then take 'em in and make 'em my own and just keep pushing and then the right place, right time and everything. And it's just, it all came together. And so yeah, it was sticktuitiveness, you didn't fail. You said, you only fail if you choose not to learn and go on to continue. If you fail and you give up and say, "I'm done". Okay. Yeah, that was a failure. But if you use that failure as a kind of spinning the flywheel to say, "Okay, what did we learn from it? How can we go? Because I really believe this is gonna do", then that's just the learning process and failures just a piece of it. That's okay. Well, one of the things I love, thank you for that. We can all galvanize around that. I think it's this idea of quitting or quitting as a failure stepping stone to success is a very clear metaphor. Also, there's the metaphor of build, right? We talked about it earlier on, building yourself and the various different parts of the book with numerous chapters in there. I'm a big structure guy. I love the structure of the book. You're building all these different things, building yourself, building teams, building, but that's a very powerful metaphor, not dissimilar to sort of failure and whatnot. This idea of building, growing. An interesting thing that I did not expect in the book is you talk about parenting. And I'm wondering if you connect this idea of building some of the best products in the world to your experience, being a parent, because I'm imagining our audience, there are a lot of people who, you know, our audience largely identify us as creators, entrepreneurs, freelancers, people who would be largely very inspired by your book. So it's a great audience fit, but there's this universality of a lot of people don't connect building these products with parenting. I'm wondering if you can make that connection for us. Okay. Well, when you are creating, you don't create kids, but you have kids, but you have to pour your heart and soul into these things and you pour your heart and your soul into your kids. If you're a great parent and you know, everybody does it, sometimes it's misguided, but you try, you're right. You you're like, oh, I'm really passionate because I'm on a mission to create, you know, help this thing become something, right. Cause it's not just me. This is a team of people, right? The iPod, the iPhone, and all this stuff is a team of people. And so you have to look at it as you have an idea, and then you give it to the team and that team manifests that idea and you try to steer it and what have you, and you get it to that point. Now, obviously there are certain times when you're gonna set down the rules and it's like, "No, it's gonna be this way". And then there's other things that they inject their own personalities into it. And then it adds another dimension to it. But there's certain things, there are rules that you don't do. And if you think about kids, there are certain rules. They can't, you know, no, you're not gonna do that. No, you're not, whatever it is. And you're trying to put your morals and values in and put that in there and trying to get them to a certain point. But it still has to come from them, the team, not just you and top down, but it has to come from them. It's top down and bottom up. And so when you're building a team, that's building a product, you have that kind of relationship. And that you're also trying to build the people on the team because a lot of people, we're doing stuff that the world's never seen before, just like the kids have never seen the world and you don't know what they're gonna be in the world. So you have to have this relationship and go, okay, I'm gonna mentor you sometimes, I'm gonna parent you sometimes and sometimes gonna be the police. And you gotta do all of that and do it with empathy for the team, but also for the customer, the thing that's gonna be on the other side. And to me, for a kid, that's who they're going to become, right? Who are they gonna become? So it's just all human nature. It's all human nature. You just don't imagine something and you down there go do it. It's about this interplay between all of that. And then between the people that includes families or their friends, on kids and their siblings, or what have you. It's all of that. And building a family unit is like, in some ways, building a team. And there's this, I can't help, but take away from the book, the undercurrent of the ability to communicate, the ability to communicate to your customers or to your child in this case, the ability to communicate the vision that you have, the narrative around a product and the narrative that we all ought to have for this one precious life. So I want to take a moment and personally acknowledge, say thank you for the book again, what we've been discussing largely here, some big ideas, but also Tony's new book called, "Build", an unorthodox guide to making things worth making. I also appreciated, I've read a lot of business books in my day. And so many of these books, they talk about, start with perfect thing X and then perfect thing Y will come along and then perfect thing, Z. And then in the end you got this great thing. And my experience isn't like any of that, it's like when shit breaks, and this doesn't go right. And knowing this is a big failure. And I genuinely appreciate that about the book specifically advice for CEOs and entrepreneurs about how to leave a company or how to sell a company. I'm looking at my list here, the importance of mentorship, the role of failures, the importance of guiding customers through journeys, the advice for leaders and parents. So it really is an expansive concept of build and from someone who's built many of the greatest things in the world. Thank you. Grateful to you for your time. And for anyone out there in the world, again. It was a labor, it's a real labor of love. It was just get it out there. And like, I was like, I'm just not gonna pull punches. I'm gonna say it the way it is and how my mentors taught me. Right. And just like, here it is all raw, unvarnished and yeah, I'm a human too, you know, I remember at General Magic, I worked with my heroes and then they turned out to be humans as well, especially when you're doing something the world's never seen, nobody's an expert, even your heroes. Right. And it's just how it is. And we just have to accept that and that's okay. It's a fascinating read. It transcends the concept of the business book and goes into what I would consider personal development and narrative. And it's exquisite. So folks out there listening, I highly recommend it. Tony, I promised, I know, given this thing is a New York times bestseller, your time is in demand. I wanted to say thanks again. And is there any place you would steer our audience, aside from buying the book that you would want them to pay attention? 'Cause we're good at supporting authors and creators in their journey, anywhere you'd steer us besides this? Oh to other books? Yeah. Or just any other projects you're working on you want us to pay attention to. Okay. Yeah. No, I think... Maybe social feeds. Yeah. Yeah. I think that, you know, I try to not be a personality in terms of, on the socials, so to speak. So I only put out information and not noise. So if you wanna go to @tfadell on Twitter or on LinkedIn, I'm there, those are the two places I really engage with. And then the other one is @futureshape.com where we have all kinds of places for creators to actually submit their plans, 'cause we invest, right. We have over 200 and some odd companies we invest in. So if they wanna go there and submit a deck or what have you and have us take a look, we're always looking for great companies, really changing, trying to help the planet or societies, what have you. And so looking for those great entrepreneurs, because at the end of the day, we're just mentors with money and we can't be retired. (soft chuckle) We just love creating and we wanna help others like I was helped. I only got here 'cause I got help. Now it's all about giving back. Whether that's the book or with Future Shape to try to help these important missions really affect the planet in a positive way. Well, that is the rationale behind this show existing. So thank you for being a guest. Congratulations on the book. We'll go check out your mentorship program. And the mentors with money is a really good way to think about this, to get Tony's eyes on this, you know where to go folks. Thanks again, Tony, for being on this show, look forward to our next time. You're always welcome as a guest on the show. Just keep putting out these incredible products, whether they're books or iPhones and you you're always welcome here. Thank you very much for your time. Thank you so much. I love the questions and I love that we're going really deep into the human nature and the creator element. So thank you. Really appreciate it. And signing off for everybody out there in the world, pay attention to Tony's new stuff, especially his new book, "Build". Until next time from Tony and I, we bid you, Adieu. (soft music)

Ratings and Reviews

Dream Focus Studio
 

By far the best classes on Creative Live!! Thanks Chase Jarvis for bringing so much greatness to the table for discussion! Just LOVE it!

René Vidal
 

@ChaseJarvis - love chat with Gabby about hope and the "relentless optimism" you share at the end of Creative Calling. Many thanks. -- René Vidal McKendree Tennis

bob
 

Excellent interview with thoughtful questions. Thanks!!

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