Transcribed with Otter.ai
Guest Chris Do
Unknown Speaker 0:02
Hey everyone, welcome to unique ways with Thomas Girard and audio podcast, we have a notable guest on today. He’s an Emmy Award winning designer, Director, CEO and chief strategist of blind and you may know him as the founder of the future, an online education platform with the mission of teaching 1 billion people how to make a living doing what they love. Please join me in welcoming Christo. Welcome Chris. Thanks very much for having me My pleasure. You ready for your 20 questions? I sure hope so. Hey, here we go. Number one, tell me a little bit more about yourself. What do you do?
Unknown Speaker 0:38
I primarily see myself as an educator, I spent a good portion of over two decades making commercials and music videos for a living for some of the biggest brands and bands of the world. But now I take that knowledge of entrepreneurship, of design and education, and I try to teach a whole lot of people using open platforms like YouTube, Instagram and LinkedIn.
Unknown Speaker 1:00
Awesome. Just know for our audience, Christo and I don’t know each other, but he recently came here to Vancouver. We’re recording where I’m recording on my side for an AMA, and that was absolutely fantastic. And so appreciative of you to to come down here. So so great to have you on. Oh, my pleasure. Thank you. So number two, what’s a key piece of knowledge that makes you different.
Unknown Speaker 1:23
I can’t say there’s one thing, but it’s the combination of understanding and walking in two worlds, being able to speak the language of art and design and the language of business and entrepreneurship. I think I’m a unique combination of both my parents, which is, my dad’s an engineer, my mom’s an artist, and putting those together, I think I’m split right down the middle,
Unknown Speaker 1:44
you know, going to your ma, ama. I realized how,
Unknown Speaker 1:50
how centered you are on the questions, and I couldn’t help but think of this phrase, the answers in the question, and I’m super excited to dig into that. But let’s move to number three. Why this? Of all things? Why do you do what you do?
Unknown Speaker 2:03
I have been very fortunate to be able to make more money than I ever thought possible. So I’m pretty set in terms of my finances. So once you get to that stage in your life, in my 40s, I started to think about what it is I want a life to mean the meaning of my life and impact. And I started to think about my first love, which is an education before entrepreneurship. And I want to be able to to have a lasting legacy that I made a dent in the universe, and try to help as many people on my way up as possible. And so that’s why I love teaching so much.
Unknown Speaker 2:38
That’s awesome. You know, we had a great typography guest on recently, Eric speakerman, who, I think got to that stage in his life and ended up opening up a kind of a studio filled with these printing presses, these old timey printing presses, and is trying to kind of bring people into that space. I think it’s super cool to have passionate projects like that.
Unknown Speaker 3:00
Okay, so number four, what does your future look like? I think it looks more like what I’m doing today, just on a bigger scale, and hopefully, barring another global pandemic, it’s in a physical space where people can come and go and learn with us, where we can have visiting professors. And all of this is documented and transmitted to the rest of the world, hopefully in in some kind of real time fashion, so that they can learn along with the students that are hanging out with us in physical space. So it’s some form of what people would call, like digital, something physical, something digital. I think that’s the future of hype, like a hybrid education model.
Unknown Speaker 3:36
Nice and number five, some people say, is unique to this podcast. The question is, let’s talk about location. How does the notion of place play into what you do?
Unknown Speaker 3:47
Well, I think
Unknown Speaker 3:49
location informs our culture, our community, and stimulates us in different ways. It’s hard to think about technology when you’re in the wilderness. It’s hard to think about the outdoors when you’re in the concrete jungle, if you will. But today, the idea of location has changed so much because almost everybody’s working in some kind of hybrid remote way, and it’s causing problems and also presenting opportunities. The opportunities it presents is that we get to spend more time doing the things that we love and less time jamming ourselves up into the into the freeways and the commute. But the challenge is, how do we stay connected as a culture, as a community? How do we brainstorm and collaborate with these kind of spontaneous ideas? I’m still searching for that answer. So So place plays a big role in how it’s impacted the way that we teach. A great content.
Unknown Speaker 4:37
I love that. You know, we had C suite designer Raja van der heat on the show, who would talk about how he opens the door to the Atelier, and that’s how he enters his workplace, I guess. And then when he closes that door, it all kind of changes. So number six, if you had to start from the beginning, what advice would you give your former younger self? That one’s an easy one for me, and what I would do is.
Unknown Speaker 5:00
I would tell my younger self to start writing, start reading and creating content as early as possible. Now I know for many years, while I was going through school, from from high school through getting a design degree, that people would say journaling is a very good form of learning about what it is you think about. And I would listen to it and shrug my shoulders and just move on with my day. But now, having been having created content, I guess for the last nine years, I’ve reaped the benefits of that form of public journaling and creating content. And I just wondered to myself, so I’m nine years into content creation, and it wasn’t a linear path. It was the flow at the beginning, and then it really ramped up somewhere in year two and three, if I had just started when I was in my 20s, and that would triple the amount of time I’ve been creating content I just can’t even fathom, like where I would be today if I just started earlier.
Unknown Speaker 5:53
We have a lot of guests who are older, who say they wish they would have started writing books sooner. It’s a big trend. Yes. Number seven, what’s your day in the life? Like?
Unknown Speaker 6:05
It’s pretty chaotic. I usually get up around 6:37am I’m a light sleeper, so when the sun’s up, I’m usually up, and I’m spending a lot of time on social. I’m reading through comments from the different channels, YouTube, Instagram, LinkedIn and Twitter, to kind of get a sense of what people are talking about, whether it’s about our content or what’s happening in the world, because I want to have my finger on the pulse, but reading through the comments helps me to generate a lot of ideas for new content. People keep thinking like, if I create content, what happens when I run out of ideas? And what I would say to them is, you only run out of ideas if you never read the comments, because as clear as you think you might be, someone has another question or wants to go deeper, or presents a credible counter argument to what you’re saying, and so that might inform what you’re thinking, or it might get you to go a little deeper and explain it a different way. And so I would do that for a good portion of my day, at the beginning, at the middle and the end of my day. Everything in between is kind of up in the air. I’ve designed my life to have the most amount of consolidated, discretionary free time, and so sometimes I read, sometimes I’ll just sit there and watch TV. I’m a pop culture junkie. I incorporate movies and TV shows and lines from films into what it is that I teach, because it’s, it’s a form of communication that I hope to one day to be able to master. So if you look at the Masters, this is what they’re doing. And sometimes it’s just making content like today, recording podcasts, teaching and educating others via zoom or some other form. That’s, that’s a pretty typical day for me, somewhere in there will be 30 minutes of working out, and I try to be pretty consistent with that
Unknown Speaker 7:48
great and number eight is connected. It’s lifelong. Learning is a popular topic. How do you stay up to date?
Unknown Speaker 7:55
I think if you remain curious, if you always tell yourself, the more you know, the less you know, I think you can become a life learner. You can’t see it now, but behind me are a series of books. And anytime somebody recommends the book or tells me something about a book, I just go to Amazon buy it. That means that the amount of books I have is far exceeded the amount of books I’ve read. But that is super inspiring to me. So oftentimes, when I have to give a talk on something, and I just want to make sure I know what I’m talking about. I’ll search for my bookshelf and pull out a book, and I’ll just read that book and say, Okay, here’s some updated information to the operating system, my so called brain, and now I can share what it is that I learned.
Unknown Speaker 8:34
Nice. Okay, number nine is about tools. Do you use both digital and analog tools? Yes, I like digital tools because they’re searchable, they’re shareable, and it reduces redundancy, because you only have to put it in once. But despite saying that, I have notebooks and notebooks filled with drawings, diagrams, writing down ideas, and I realized a certain pattern in my life, that I tend to redraw the same diagram over and over again, and sometimes I get upset at myself, like, what are you doing? You’ve already done this. But I actually reframe that as the more you draw a diagram or explain something to yourself or document it, the more likely it is going to stick with you, and you’ll be able to recall it on a given notice. So as you know, because you’re part of that ama fireside chat, people ask you all kinds of random questions. And if you’re not used to thinking and explaining things to people, to yourself, ama could be one of the scariest things to do, because there’s no safety net. You’re walking on a tight rope, and you need to be educational and informative at the same time. So I love that format. I thrive in that format because I’m constantly writing, documenting both digital and analog.
Unknown Speaker 9:44
Well, yeah, and that was super interesting because you’re American, and that was a Canadian audience. And I remember a few points in your in your talk where you’re like, Oh yeah, you guys are Canadian. So, you know, we’ve got to approach it this way. That must have been a interesting curveball for you. You know, I like to.
Unknown Speaker 10:00
Do those cultural digs and differences, and if I don’t, if I do it correctly, everybody has a good time. If I do it incorrectly, people are really insulted, and they think you’re ignorant. So it’s a line to skate, right? And so when you walk into a culture that’s not used to expressing their emotions, you can make some jokes about that. I’m not saying Canadians are that way, but I test it, you know, I throw out a line, I kind of like, wait with a little bated breath to see how people respond, and there’s a laugh, chuckle or laughter. I’m like, Okay, we’re safe here. Everybody’s cool. We understand certain stereotypes. It’s not universal, but it’s pretty broad, and it applies to lots of different things. Like, if I want to make a joke about Tim Hortons, everybody will get it. In America, they’re scratching head, like, what we talking about right now?
Unknown Speaker 10:42
Nice. I love that. Okay, we’re halfway. Number 10. How do you deal with work life balance? I don’t believe in work life balance. I believe in work life integration, that those two should overlap. Work life balance tends to make a segment, this is work and this is life, and it creates two selves, the work self and the and your personal self. And I think what happens in many relationships is they haven’t figured out to integrate it. So when they’re working, they’re being separate from their family, from their lives and from their friends, and when they’re with their friends and family, they’re like, constantly feeling like, I need to be back at work. So what I like to do is try to integrate those two things. And let me give you an example. So for a period of about two years, my youngest son was taken out of school, and he was
Unknown Speaker 11:27
homeschooled via an online private program, which meant education chores were left up to somebody else, but he and I could travel the world so wouldn’t disrupt his studies. He had an awesome laptop, and he couldn’t continue to participate via zoom, or whatever he did, and we got to travel the world together. We got to fly in a helicopter, swim with with whales, and it was just one of the most amazing things. And I cherish those moments. He eventually went back to school, but those two years were magical, and have so many pictures and memories with my son, and it’s something that we’ll share forever, and I think it’s one of the reasons why we’re so close today, he’s 17. When he was doing this, he was 12 or 13 years old. But I also got him to introduce him to my world, which is public speaking and coaching. And so he would sit there with with his little notebook. His notes are pretty cute. Obviously, he didn’t write very many things down. He goes, didn’t you talk about this last time? Dad? I’m like, Yes, but this is what people pay me to do, and this is what I do to make a living. And so I like that. So sometimes your work and your life blend together, and we travel together. We work together. My son helps me out. My other son was writing and editing my videos, and he does it voluntarily. I don’t ask him to do that. And what’s really cool is I got to speak at my son’s
Unknown Speaker 12:43
my son’s high school. It wasn’t a commencement speech or anything like that. It was just me speaking to a bunch of students and parents during family day. And I thought for one moment, my work life overlapped with my son’s life, and I was happy to be there, and I think he was really proud that his father was able to tell some stories, make some kids laugh, and share some information.
Unknown Speaker 13:06
I love that, if you weren’t doing what you do now, what would you be doing?
Unknown Speaker 13:11
I would be doing my son asked me this, dad, when you retire, what do you do? Exactly the same thing. I’m like, yeah, exactly same thing. What I do now is I’m driven by purpose, mission and my passion. And this is what I would be doing, whether I’m getting paid to do it or not. I love to read, and part of reading is you need to apply to something, and you don’t want to hoard the information. You want to share. The act of sharing it allows it to be more deeply understood by you, and then you get the gift of giving it to other people at the same time. So I’d be reading, I would be writing, and I’d be making content, probably with no products to sell, but that would be the only difference.
Unknown Speaker 13:48
Well, what would you not like to do with your career?
Unknown Speaker 13:53
What I don’t want to do is to be like everybody else, to create marketing funnels, squeeze plays, email, trip wires and just market and sell people using high pressure tactics. And as for as long as I’m in charge of this company, I’ll never happen.
Unknown Speaker 14:08
Do you have a favorite word, quote or sentence,
Unknown Speaker 14:12
right now? It’d be see you at the top. That’s Zig Ziglar.
Unknown Speaker 14:16
And not everyone has this one. But you have a least favorite word, quote or sentence?
Unknown Speaker 14:22
My least favorite word is probably can’t, because you’ve now predetermined that something’s not possible for you. And I like to live in the world of infinite possibilities, and just because you have a single failure, it’s not a final failure, you’ll figure out a way to overcome that. And I think that’s one of the most amazing things about the human mind. It’s like, we can say we will live on Mars, and eventually it will happen
Unknown Speaker 14:43
you have one word to describe yourself. What word would you choose?
Unknown Speaker 14:50
Cantankerous?
Unknown Speaker 14:53
What keeps you up at night?
Unknown Speaker 14:56
Nothing. Asleep. Really well. Do
Unknown Speaker 14:58
you have a dream you’re chasing?
Unknown Speaker 15:00
In
Unknown Speaker 15:01
Yes, to change how education is taught in America from college all the way down to grade school.
Unknown Speaker 15:07
Okay, final stretch here, number 18. What inspires you? People inspire me. The conversations I have with people inspire me tremendously.
Unknown Speaker 15:16
Any advice you’d like to share,
Unknown Speaker 15:19
don’t give too much advice, listen more ask more questions and be curious.
Unknown Speaker 15:25
And I always phrase this one differently, but for you, well, how can our listeners keep tabs on you? I guess what’s our call to action would probably be the one for you. I would love for people to if they’re interested and curious about what it is that we do. Go to the future.com the future spelled F, u t, u r.com, but you can follow me on almost every social platform, at the Chris doe and DOE spelled D O,
Unknown Speaker 15:51
okay. Thank you so much for being on, you know, such a such a privilege to have you here, and, you know, to see you in Vancouver, and then now be be virtual like this is super great. So thank you so much. Thank you very much. Just out of curiosity, where were you sitting in the audience? I was on the edge of the left side. So I was just on the very edge stage right for me, your left, yeah, like in the darkness, right near the bar, I think so. Yeah. Okay, all right. Just trying to, like, trying to figure out where you are in that whole thing. Okay, okay, thanks. Thank you. Take care.
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