Become a Design Thinker

You are in the darkness. You don't know where to go. You feel stuck. You want to find a way out. No one cares about what you are doing. You are always being ignored or put aside. It is one of the best moments in your life. This is because no one cares about your work. You have the freedom to create something new. While no one has expectations and goal setting for you, you have plenty of time...

Silent Pitching is the art of creating influence without confrontation, guiding others without forcing them, and letting ideas grow in their hearts rather than forcing them into their ears. In this episode, we will discuss how silent pitchers pitch new mindsets to people staying in their comfort zone. We used a quadrant approach to discuss our topic. You can download the Quadrant diagram through t...

You want people to follow your ideas, become part of your creations, and form a larger community. Instead of a push, you should learn to serve. So, the simple question we should ask is,  How should we serve to multiply our creations and expand our influence? We used a quadrant approach to discuss our topic. You can download the Quadrant diagram through this link so that you can use the new approac...

You are very busy at work, but you don't know what you are doing. You cannot tell others what your job is about. You passively react to people's demands. You are not creating something at your work that you can proudly tell your family or friends. You are surviving but not thriving.  Your passion for your job is gone, and your vision to contribute to your job by what you are good at is l...

 In the last episode, we have discussed the first half of the topic:  Become a Forager: Crossing the Four Lands of Growth  Today, we will go through the second part of the episode. Become a Forager is a mindset that we do not settle in the current situation. We actively and iteratively explore, create, and learn to produce a better future than today.  We used a quadrant approach to discuss our top...

Today, we will look into this problem from the mentality of Forager.   Forager definition: a person or animal that goes from place to place searching for things that they can eat or use. Forager is like a hunter, gardener, adventurer, explorer, builder, consumer,...These multiple characteristics of Forager become interesting when we use it as a metaphor for our different stages of work and life. ...

Do you have an experience where you are not moving forward? We may have worked very hard, but gained no reward. You tried to create a breakthrough, but you don't know which direction to go. You don't have a map. You don't have a compass. And the worst is that the direction of the next step is so uncertain, like being covered by a thick layer of fog.  In this episode, we will explore...

Have you ever experienced a period of time when you were being isolated and your works were idled? You felt like you could not move forward. You might be very busy at work, but nothing valuable was created. You were struggling with different relationships without any progress. You were just wandering in the same spot. What made it worse was that you were pushed backward and could not show any impr...

Our identity in our career life may have been once destroyed. It can be due to external forces - your role was being rejected as what we discussed in the last episode. Or you are being fired from current position. Maybe your new supervision changed all your job duties overnight and get rid of all you have done for years.  When your old identity have been destroyed, you have to rebuild it. Rebuildi...

At some point in your life, you may be rejected. We are not talking about your proposal being rejected by your boss or your pitch is rejected by your client. We are talking about your role being rejected. Being rejected means you are being ignored or put aside. No one cares what you are doing. Today, we will discuss how to rebuild your identity, and your work when opportunity comes, when you have...

 You think you are building something solid.  But somewhere along the way, something else has quietly crumbled.  So, what have been broken down and left behind?  Your passion - which you have traded for security when you were young.  Your identity – which is shaped more by people’s expectations rather than yourself.  Your vision - which is nearly forgotten in the rush to climb.  We have a general...

Our success is often built on what we’ve done in the past. The things we repeat—our habits, strategies, and ways of thinking. These will help us succeed by offering us proven formulas. They create a sense of certainty in an uncertain world.  But here's the hard truth: What brought you here may not get you there.  It means that your previous successful formula, thinking, and methods may not be...

In a rapidly changing world shaped by longer lifespans and the rise of AI, defining your future solely by connecting the dots of your past limits your potential. True adaptability and innovation come from embracing the "white space" — the unmarked areas of your experience that hold unrealized possibilities.  In this episode, we will get inspiration from Chinese Calligrapher in handling t...

How rocket scientists faced failure?  While every small failure may cause fatal consequences. Rocket scientists living in a world of uncertainty, using the limited knowledge about the universe, keep testing the limits to send humans to space. We love certainty. But our world has become more uncertain than before. We have to find a way to live with uncertainty, even dance with it.  What inspiration...

Join us in this special bonus episode of "Become a Design Thinker" podcast as we dive into the world of community engagement with Jake McKee.  Learn how Jake has helped globally renowned brands like Lego and Southwest Airlines integrate customer voices into their product development. Discover the principles of community-driven product development, the importance of storytelling, and how...

 When we are breaking our comfort zone - our career reinvention, identity shifts, and burnout, the loneliness of solo work, loss of focus, disorientation, and fast-changing work contexts require others’ support.  We need communities that embrace risk-taking—especially in learning something new or exploring new terrain — because our growth, transformation, and creativity all begin at the edge of un...

Many people may struggle with how to start solving a problem. It may be a problem at work, a tension in your family or a self-doubt in personal growth. You may feel overwhelmed. There are so many pathways in front of you. But you simply don’t know how to start. The overwhelming nature of the situation makes it feel gigantic—too big to tackle. We are overwhelmed by the problems ahead. It is not jus...

We are working in a very fluid global business environment. Many of us may have the self-awareness that the knowledge we have learnt in school and the experience we have earned in the first half of our career life may not be sufficient to carry on in the remaining part of our career. We may struggle that we don’t have enough time to learn something new. Or we may struggle that the learning journey...

We are all granted for a fixed amount of time. Time does not belong to us. We don’t own our time. If we don’t use our time wisely, it will pass away .  Everyone has only 24 hours a day. Creating extra time is impossible. But if you can apply the four principles discussed in the last episode, you can create extra moments that can be allocated for your lifelong learning.  In today's episode, we...

 Learning Nomad is an idea to empower us to survive and thrive in the ever-changing workplace impacted by AI. It is a commitment to lifelong learning to build our self-awareness of the knowledge gap, self-orientation of growth direction and self-pacing learning habits in a fast-changing context.  To embrace lifelong learning, we have to bust the following misbelief. We are too old. Why do we have...

In this episode, we’ll explore the concept of the Learning Nomad as a powerful metaphor for navigating today’s ever-changing working landscape. Just as nomads adapt to shifting environments by remaining flexible, resourceful, and open to new opportunities, adopting a similar mindset toward lifelong learning can empower us to thrive in uncertainty. We’ll dive into the mindset shift required to embr...

*The name and some content of this episode are inspired by the book The Art and Business of Ghost-writing , written by Nicolas Cole. Our daily work and life. We may have occasions when we have to deliver a message that does not come from you and is uncomfortable to someone else. But we have the responsibility to tell the brutal facts or give a wake-up call. If you are a manager, you may need to fl...

Design thinkers are quiet to observe, patient to prepare, calm to speak and prompt to act behind the scenes to serve people you care about. In this episode, we will discuss how design thinkers serve people.  We will talk more about the YOU mindset of design thinkers. Design thinkers deeply think and promptly act for people. We pursue to create a positive impact through our creativity, actions and...

You may have fragmented stories when you look back on your past. These stories provide clues that may help you to reinvent your journey and suggest the next step forward. Like a Quilter, you can sew fragmented ideas into meaningful patterns. The pattern tells the stories of the quilter, about the self-discovery journey, about freedom, and about the community they serve. If you start to look into y...

In this episode, we will explore how to reframe what had happened to us and turn it into a meaningful story. This story is not a nostalgic reminiscent. A meaningful story can connect our past and make sense of what we doing now. Most importantly, the story should open a path for us to take more steps toward a desirable future that we are pursuing.  Like a curator, we can manage the meaningful coll...