Pick a Door and Run Through It

How does Essential Dynamics help the high school graduates of 2021? Derek talks through the questions he might ask an 18 year old to get them thinking about their quest.

Show Notes

Derek is at derekhudson.ca. 
See full show notes at the Essential Dynamics Wiki.

What is Essential Dynamics with Derek Hudson?

Join Derek Hudson as he explores Essential Dynamics, a framework for approaching the challenges facing people and organizations. Consider your Quest!

Reed: 00:20

There we go. There you are and there here we are. My name is Reed McColm and I'm your essentially dynamic good looking host for a podcast where we talk about how to look at business and lifestyle matters, and that is done by my guru and mentor and teacher, Derek Hudson. Derek, are you there?

Derek: 00:46

I am here, Reid, and I'm excited to be here. And, yes, when you say are you there, it's because we're over Zoom yet again. But hope to have a great conversation today. Again. Super excited about it.

Reed: 01:00

I think we shall. Derek, what I'd like to discuss today is we've had some response from people in business. We've had response from people in other aspects. We've had response from all of your adult children. We've heard a lot of perspective from people.

Reed: 01:19

And one of the things that struck me is we've had some response from a high school teacher who is listening to our podcast. I hope he still is. And I really want to apply essential dynamics to a specific environment. And so let's today pretend we're in high school and what you would say to 17, 18 year olds about to graduate and going out into the world, but what they're ending is their high school education. Possibly it's been a very difficult year for them because we're still in COVID conditions and hope to see the end of that soon, but we don't know really when that will be or when the vaccines will finally reach us.

Reed: 02:08

Derek, what would your advice be if you were speaking to the class of 2021?

Derek: 02:14

Well, thanks, Read. I guess they're going to have some kind of ceremony, they're not going to invite me. So I'm gonna I'm gonna take it from a lecture to the class to what I'm more familiar with, which is just kind of a one on one coaching session.

Reed: 02:36

I think that's applicable. Go ahead.

Derek: 02:38

And so just to to fill in a little background, I've been a a scout leader and a leader of youth and a leader of leaders of youth for many years. One of my current responsibilities involves me spending a lot of time talking with young people about their career plans. And I really try to take a coaching kind of approach where I ask them to think through what their plans are and kind of put things in front of them to consider in the form of questions, and try not to give them a lot of advice. But then I also appreciate that there's a forty plus, year experience difference. And from time to time, I might be able to save them a little bit of time if I put some other stuff out there.

Derek: 03:23

So I I have this balance between, you know, coaching and, facilitating on the one hand their own thought process, which is really important, and then a little bit of tidbits. And so maybe I'll combine them a little bit today. If we think about essential dynamics being a way of looking at things, it doesn't tell you the answers.

Reed: 03:42

Okay. I I completely appreciate that. Go ahead.

Derek: 03:49

But it does but it does ask the questions. Of course.

Reed: 03:52

That's what we need.

Derek: 03:53

So if we think about essential dynamics as this using the concept of a quest and where there's some, you know, righteous or or, you know, overwhelming purpose that that that drives the quest, some need, then the other elements are just people and a path. People doing the journey to accomplish the thing that's required of the quest. And so for an 18 year old high school graduate, let you know, we start by talking about, just like you say at the end of every episode, you know, what's what's your quest? Consider your quest.

Reed: 04:40

Derek, do you find in your experience as a coach and as a a teacher of sorts, do you find your audience aware of their quest or aware of their path? Do they always know what they want to do? Do they always have a plan in mind? It seems that a high school student about to graduate would have an acute sense of impending change.

Derek: 05:14

Yeah. Impending is a good word. I thought you were gonna say doom, which which I which I recently read was doom meant what's gonna happen. It wasn't always a bad connotation. You know, to pronounce someone's doom is to say what's gonna happen, to foretell the future and not that it was always a bad thing.

Derek: 05:34

So I don't know how that got negative. But anyway, Reid, here's here's a couple observations. The first one is if you talk to a high school kid who's in grade 11 or younger and say, what do you wanna be when you grow up? They have they a lot of them have it all figured out. The same the same kid in grade 12, deer in the headlights.

Derek: 05:59

Right? It's one thing to have a plan that you don't have to execute on. Oh, I'm gonna be a doctor. I'm gonna be an anthropologist. And then all of a sudden when you gotta make a decision and commit to something, then they all they all freeze up.

Derek: 06:10

And so, no, I don't find that many 18 year olds, have an idea of what they wanna be when they grow up or even really clear on a plan. But I would also say, that most of them don't see their lives as as epic as what we're talking about with the quest.

Reed: 06:30

Sure. It's yeah. I understand.

Derek: 06:32

And but it is. Like, you think about it and you think about, you know, the potential of an 18 year old and all the stuff they have in front of them and the fact that really all they've been doing their whole lives is preparing for that. The time when they have, you know, control over their own decisions and own schedule. It's pretty epic. And so if you can

Reed: 06:58

get them It's it's deep deep, which is why graduations are always followed by a party. They're celebratory.

Derek: 07:06

Sure. Because you accomplished, you know, an awesome thing. Although, you know, you accomplished a bunch of stuff and then all it sets you up to do is to accomplish more. There's more that's gonna be asked.

Reed: 07:19

Absolutely. That's right. Yeah.

Derek: 07:20

So if I was talking to an 18 year old, you know, I might not say, you know, what's what's your quest in life? What were you what were you put on this earth to do? I don't think I would ask it in those terms. But, you know, we'd we'd go there a little bit. And we'd say, what like, what do you think that you're really interested in or that you're particularly good at?

Derek: 07:42

Or what do you do that really where you really find you know, where do you get energy from? And, you know, I don't know if I'd ever even lay it all out, but just kinda get them on that direction of motion forward to accomplish something. And if they say, well, I really like learning. I really like helping people. You know, I'm super interested in, you know, sort of high energy adrenaline rush thrill seeking experiences, whatever it is, then, you know, we're gonna build on that.

Derek: 08:17

I think the other thing that that is kinda cool though about essential dynamics is you could introduce to a young person the idea that they could have two purposes.

Reed: 08:30

Yes, that's frequently foreign. Before you approached me with this theory and this way of looking at things, purpose X and purpose Y were completely new to me.

Derek: 08:45

So for example, if I think about how I approached my university years, I would say that purpose x was to get an education so that I could have a career, And purpose y was to have just a ton of fun with, you know, with with really interesting people to enjoy my sort of new independence and just have a lot of different experiences. And, you know, there wasn't I don't think I wrote that down, but I certainly did it.

Reed: 09:15

Uh-huh.

Derek: 09:16

And it was as important to my well, it was probably more important to my development than actually, you know, grinding through the university courses.

Reed: 09:24

That's something we make jokes about a lot, is the social aspect of university training. But that's true of any person that doesn't even have to go on to university. There is a lot of we call it sowing your wild oats, but it's also very important to find who your people are.

Derek: 09:45

Yeah. And find out who you are. Right. Well,

Reed: 09:48

Absolutely. Yeah. Now I always knew that I wanted to dance for a living. And at graduation, of course, I wanted to become which is what I have done, is become a choreographer for Beyonce. So I'm very happy that I've been able to do that.

Reed: 10:04

Now I can talk about it with some authority. And yet I don't find young people respecting me when I bring that up.

Derek: 10:14

Reed, you're not stretching it enough because I happen to know that you have been paid money to dance in front of an audience, and I know that I haven't.

Reed: 10:26

Yes. Well, that may be true. Well, I thought the Beyonce reference would would be the clue. But I didn't okay.

Derek: 10:41

So let me let me let me carry on if I can unless you got a zinger for me?

Reed: 10:45

No. I don't. I'm not gonna mention it on the air. We'll just people wanna know, they can come to your website. Where is that, by the way?

Derek: 10:52

Derek hudson dot c a.

Reed: 10:53

Very good. Thanks. Cute.

Derek: 10:55

So so we talked about the the purpose side. And so next, the way I think about it is the path. Like, how are we gonna get there? And the path in an organization is the processes and systems that you set up so that your you know, people can work together to accomplish something worthwhile. For a person, for an 18 year old, I think one of the key things is to think, like, what's my system?

Derek: 11:23

Like like, what is my what's my thing that I do? How do I get stuff done? What's my personal operating system? And, like, for example, I had one in university that I didn't ever, you know, sort of proactively develop. But as I look back on it, it's still something that I have.

Derek: 11:42

Like, I take notes.

Reed: 11:45

Mhmm. You always done that?

Derek: 11:47

Yes. Yeah. I take notes. I take them in outline form because missus Chapman taught me how to do that in grade eight. And I hated it.

Derek: 11:56

But yeah. And I review notes that I've taken and write even more summarized notes and that's how I learn and I learn by writing stuff and talking about it and not so much by just sort of passively reading it. So, you know, develop your operating system. Figure out if you're better in the morning or the evening. Figure out how to fit in important stuff you don't like to do with less important stuff that you do like to do.

Reed: 12:20

When did you figure that out, Derek?

Derek: 12:22

Oh, I'm still working on that one, Reid.

Reed: 12:24

No. I'm just I'm full of both inquisitiveness and admiration because I think you figured out a lot of that early because you organized your life differently than I did.

Derek: 12:36

Okay. Well, I gotta talk about my son. I've talked about most of my kids one time or another, but not my son as much for some reason. But this is the kid that had an office. After his sisters moved out, had enough space, so he had his own office.

Derek: 12:53

And on the tiny office that I used to have in the basement, and he had a whiteboard. This kid in grade 12 had all his assignments mapped out and like, I was never like that. But, you know so he's he's now com you know? No.

Reed: 13:05

But I could understand being being a child of of you and your wife, both of whom I admire very much for the organization. I think I think your son probably came by it honestly.

Derek: 13:17

Yeah. So if you take Derek plus discipline, which is what you you know, his Tanner got from his mom. Yeah. Anyway, he had a system. He he took the system into university.

Derek: 13:28

You know, athletes get a system. People, you know I mean, that's why some of the some of the experiences these kids have outside of school, sports, music, drama, all that kind of stuff. Like, you you develop a bit of a system. How do you, psych up for a stressful event? How do you decompress afterwards?

Derek: 13:47

How do you stay late and do the reps that the other people aren't doing? So that's something that, you know, you don't know what you wanna be when you grow up, but you're starting to build your system. You're, you know, you're gonna do fine. You're gonna get there. The other thing I'd say about that path side is, you know, we talk about drivers and constraints.

Reed: 14:09

Yes.

Derek: 14:10

And so for a kid coming out of high school and heading into the future, you know, they can say, what drives me? Is it time with my friends? Is it physical activity? Is it intellectual challenge? You're gonna be forced to do some stuff that's not in that category.

Derek: 14:29

But how do you tap into the energy? Where do you get your energy from? So maybe it's someone who physical activity is the thing and they find the only way they're gonna be able to get through their classes and and the assignments and stuff that they have in post secondary is they gotta get out and run-in the morning or they gotta play on a sports team.

Reed: 14:47

Mhmm.

Derek: 14:48

Just just to have that outlet so that they can, you know, have energy left for for stuff that's important that doesn't doesn't doesn't rev their engines as much. And then on the constraint side, just say what, you know, what's holding me back? Am I burning too much time watching TV or, you know, on Facebook or whatever? And then say, now how do I actively control that and take charge of that? That's of course, you know, adolescence is a time when you you dabble in that and adulthood is maybe hopefully when when you get a handle on it.

Reed: 15:25

You know,

Derek: 15:26

lot of us are still working on those things.

Reed: 15:28

That's true. Derek, if I'm an 18 year old child and consider me such because I'm not far away from 18 When I was 18, what I remember is all I saw was constraints. I didn't know what drove me because I never really thought about it. I thought that would just fall into place, how I spent my time and things. But constraints, all I saw were obstacles, and fortunately, I was around people who helped me leap them to some degree.

Reed: 16:08

But in my business, after school, I knew I wanted a university degree for personal partly I wanted the education, but I also wanted to meet the people who also felt about the arts as I did. And so I went from journalism to arts and pretty quickly figured out that I had a choice. It was either in my business, it was either go to Los Angeles or go to New York. And it certainly wasn't stay in Canada at that time. And so that was it was binary.

Reed: 16:47

That was my choice. Los Angeles or New York. And I'd figure it out when I got there. I did not have a plan.

Derek: 16:54

So I don't I don't know how, you know, you have a plan at 18. I mean, you can have a plan. In fact, it's good to have a plan at 18. It's just that that's not what's gonna happen. Yeah.

Derek: 17:06

No no plan survives first no battle plan survives first contact with the enemy. So so that's why I'm that's why I'm talking about kind of like if you have your own kind of system and then pay attention to the things that are holding you back and the things that you can tap in to move forward, then you can kinda be where you need to be for the next step. So for Reid, for you, I know that one of the things that you did is you kinda you had to follow your driver. Right? And, I mean, it wasn't gonna do it to to study how to write in a journalistic You had to be creative and you had to be with people.

Reed: 17:45

Yeah. Yeah.

Derek: 17:46

Like, you you knew you had to do that.

Reed: 17:49

Yes. I guess I always did. And frankly, my diversion into journalism was only was really a very weak bow to what because I was told I couldn't possibly make a living if I got a theater degree. And I got that theater degree anyway and found out that everybody was absolutely right. But I'm still 18, Derek, and I'm what are you saying to me?

Reed: 18:22

I don't know if I can stay in I don't have a plan. How are you going to organize my thoughts?

Derek: 18:32

So so, you know, we're asking about the purpose. And you're making some notes about, I like doing this. I think it would be important to accomplish that. You know, maybe that's a bit bit cloudy, but there's something there. You're talking about how you how you manage yourself, that there's things that that can you can tap into to move forward, and there's some things that might get in the way, you can make choices on that.

Derek: 19:02

Last thing I'm just gonna talk about to complete the essential dynamics model is the people side and this idea that, there's the individual and the group. And so 18 years old, you're starting to figure out who you are as an individual. And a lot of that has been in the context of the various groups that you put in, whether it's a classroom or a sports team or

Reed: 19:27

Right. Of course.

Derek: 19:28

The drama club or whatever. But one of the things that just almost paralyzes 18 year olds stepping out of high school is they can't just go with the group.

Reed: 19:38

Yeah.

Derek: 19:38

There's not the group disbands. The group goes a bunch of different ways. And and so they just start to need to be their, you know, their own person. They may they may decide they wanna just live under their parents. I don't mean like living at home, but I mean their parents can pick their education for them and they're just gonna ride it for another bunch of years.

Derek: 20:00

But that's this is the time Absolutely. This is the time when it are like, the opportunity starts to present itself. And and you can decide kinda what person you wanna be. So the the purpose

Reed: 20:13

Absolutely. Absolutely.

Derek: 20:15

You know, kinda defines that. But then the other thing that you find out is once you move down the path, just like in these epic stories we've been talking about, the person changes. And so the key coming out of 18 The

Reed: 20:31

person changes.

Derek: 20:31

You know, coming out of high school is just move. Move forward. Don't stop. And things will things will settle into place. That's you know?

Derek: 20:39

And and so if I had if I had one

Reed: 20:42

are forced.

Derek: 20:45

Yeah. So you just have different experiences.

Reed: 20:47

Change. Yeah. Yeah. I get that.

Derek: 20:49

So if I had one sort of piece of advice to give the class of 2021, it would be, you got this. And then the second thing I would say, and this is something we said in one of our previous episodes is, you got this, but it's not about you. Yeah. So that that purpose has to be about accomplishing something that means something to other people. But, yeah, you've got you know, every 18 year old I've ever met has got way more to offer than they fully appreciate.

Reed: 21:22

Oh, I I agree. I think that's totally true. And it's so easy for us as adults to see, but it's so difficult to see when you're that 18 year old person. I so appreciate that. I also think of Bing Griffiths, our amazing engineer, whose father was, of course, the great game show host Monty Hall from Let's Make a Deal.

Reed: 21:46

And Bryn just, of course, wanted to follow in his footsteps and so he became an engineer for sound. Think that's an obvious stepping into your parents' ambitions.

Derek: 21:59

Anyway you're just confusing everybody, right?

Reed: 22:02

I'm confusing everybody. So my advice to

Derek: 22:06

the 18 year old is pick one and start running through it.

Reed: 22:10

Yeah. Good. I love that. I love that. That's a great place for us to conclude today.

Reed: 22:15

Derek, that's a great place. Pick a door and run through it. Alright. For Bryn Griffiths, our engineer, and for Derek Hudson, our guru, I'm your handsome host, Reed McCollum, saying consider your quest.