255: Jennifer Turliuk — Cultivating Innovation Within Our Children

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Our show today is really all about helping the people around you, the employees on your team, young new hires, but even your kids, right? So how do you help your kids find the life they want? I'm so proud. My daughter's working with one of the top producers in the music industry. My son has all kinds of business interests. She lives in LA, he lives in New York. 21, 23. Their successes and things are already fantastic. What is it? How do we get that as entrepreneurs? How do we help people become who they need to be? Some people think you just ingrain them, all the stuff that worked for you. But of course that's what worked for you, not necessarily what will work for them. Today's show is really all about helping folks get to that place. Oh, yeah. So welcome again to the Scaling Up Business podcast. I'm your host and scaling coach, Bill Gallagher. We've done hundreds of shows like this. Now we bring three shows a week. A tip show, a show with a special guest and then a deep dive getting real conversation with the CEO about the leadership lessons learned as they grew and developed their business. So that's all of that. You'll find all those shows and more@scalingcoach.com. All right, all right, all right, all right. So we're joined by Jennifer. Oh, you know what I did. How do I pronounce your last name?

Turliuk Turlock. It's okay.

Turlic. Yeah, that. No emphasis on that. The I there. All right, all right, all right. So Jennifer, you're in a fine mood today, I can see.

I like this music.

It's fun getting into it. All right, so we're going to talk today with Jennifer. So Jennifer came to our attention. She wrote an article for Forbes about her journey that that just attracted thousands or thousands over a million views and has become a top trending author, speaker, entrepreneur. She works well. I'll let her tell you more about all of that. But she's worked with developing people, helping them figure out where to go next in their and what to do and like how to tap into what's special to them. She has some strong thoughts about it. I'm going to let you tell a little bit of your kind of own story because I think that's a good leading one. Then we'll talk about some of the people that you work with. Welcome to the show.

Oh, thanks so much for having me.

So where are you today? Where are we connected from? Yeah, where are you now?

In Burlington, Ontario. I'm visiting my parents right now.

Awesome. And did you have to do that whole 10 day countdown of COVID jail?

Kind of. I mean currently the rule is if you live alone, you can visit with up to one household. So that's where we're at. I got tested, you know, all that good stuff.

Well, we just had a family gathering here and as I speak and the majority of the adults, the vast there was only one of our visitors in our family who wasn't vaccinated now and they have already had Covid so they just had a negative test to come visit us and they live alone. So we had a gathering in person with extended family without anxiety and that was remarkable. And I know that probably the vast majority of our listeners aren't in that position yet. And so I don't want to be snotty about it, but it is coming. It is a sweet feeling.

That sounds like a dream. We're way behind here in Canada on vaccinations, so yeah, we'll get to that point soon.

It's coming and you'll feel good when it does. So tell us your story first. How did you get into this line of work? You know, talk about that.

Yeah, for sure. So after university I started into a corporate job and I quickly found myself really dissatisfied. But I didn't know what I wanted to do next or how to figure that out. I'd done like all sorts of career testing and coaching that had led me to that position. But I wasn't liking it so I figured I might need to try something different. So I actually had heard a lot of good things about Silicon Valley and ending up ended up quitting my job and flying down to Silicon Valley and just cold emailing investors, entrepreneurs and professors to ask if I could meet up with them and ask how they figured out what to do with their lives. I was fortunate enough to be able to interview and or shadow folks like the founders of Square, Airbnb, Kiva and Stanford professors. And that really helped me figure out what I wanted to do, which was to start a business. And then I was wondering what kind. And then I was actually admitted to the Singularity University program at NASA where we learned about how to apply exponential technologies like robotics and 3D printing to global grand challenges like poverty, water and education. And they asked us to choose a global grand challenge area to focus on. And I came across a quote from Nelson Mandela that said, education is the most powerful weapon you can use to transform the world. And also thought back to this experience I had when I was 12 where I coded a website about Harry Potter that ended up being featured in a magazine and really helped me get more engaged at school and overcome some of the bullying I was facing. And I thought, well, what if I could provide experiences like that to kids and bring some of the lessons from Singularity University to kids? And that's when I got started with Maker Kids and we started the first makerspace for kids in the world. And today we run award winning virtual programs, camps and parties on coding, robotics and Minecraft that help kids develop confidence, social skills, resilience and a positive relationship with technology. So kids have started businesses, won prizes from NASA and excitingly have had many positive mental health outcomes as well. So that's where we are today.

Isn't that really cool? So when did you go through Singularity Program?

That was in 2012.

Oh yeah, so a little while ago. Really good. And did you meet, spend time with Salim Ismail while you were there?

Yeah, Salim's a good friend of mine and his child has been in our Maker Kids programs for years.

So then you know Lily too and.

Absolutely. Yeah, they're good friends of mine.

Isn't that awesome? Well, Salim and Lily both coached people in a leadership program I was leading years ago. And then I coached them on coaching people and in their projects and that kind of thing. So I know them both really well and I miss them now that they're up in Toronto and like that.

But yeah, they're really nice people.

That's fantastic. So then you've taken that out now and you're doing that with other people. So talk to us about some of those. I know as we got ready for the show, you talked about some of that. One of the stories you shared was about a 10 year old in a robotics class who wanted a laptop and talk about that a little bit. Tell us, who's this kid what's the deal?

His name was Alex. Well, it was Alex, and he was 10 years old at the time, and he was in our robotics program. And he said, hey, I really want a laptop. And he was asking his mom if she could buy him a laptop. And she was sort of on the fence about it, didn't want to necessarily buy him one, but was open to him having one and using one. And we were talking and we said, well, what if you started a business that could help you make money to be able to buy your own laptop? And his mom was totally on board with this plan. And so he, after taking our robotics program, he started a business making audio speakers to sell to his neighbors and also working on repairing the audio systems of his neighbors, like their pre existing audio systems to help start saving for a laptop.

Wow. And so I'm guessing he got his laptop.

I actually never heard if he ended up getting it or not. He sort of graduated out of, like, the age bracket, our programs, but he seemed to be well on his way. And what was really cool, too, was that he was getting more engaged at school. Like, he'd previously said, oh, I hate math. Math sucks. But then we started talking about, you know, profit and loss and how you use math to help calculate how much you can make from this business, then that can help you get closer towards your goal of buying a laptop. And then his mom said that suddenly he got more engaged in math class after that.

Yeah, it's funny how we find a way to connect with something and that opens up something else, right? Then it changes the way we see everything else in life when we find and connect to it. I know our son's older than our daughter, so he was the first one to get a laptop which was a little more personal than the family computer, which was old over in the corner. The kid's first computer, I think, was one of those Bondi blue imacs, which kind of puts about the age. Right? And then, then he got a laptop. And I remember we put all the parental controls on it, right? But he figured out how to root the laptop and bypass everything. And so my wife and I had a conversation about, like, well, should we. Should we take it away from him? Should we lock it down? I'm like, you know, if he knows how to root the laptop and bypass everything, then he's got enough intelligence to figure stuff out and he's going to get exposed to whatever he's going to. It's, you know, like whatever weird stuff you're worried about as a parent, them Fiddling with on the Internet, they're going to find their way to it, you know, so there's no point. We've given him what there is. Hopefully we've taught him right.

Yeah, I remember I disabled my parents, put netnanny into place and that was one of my first early coding experiences, was figuring out how to disable that. I had it down in a matter of hours. But yeah, what we advise parents, a lot of parents ask us about how to help their kids build a positive relationship with technology. So we talk to them about, you know, sitting with your child and you know, building things with them, like playing Minecraft with them, for example, if that's something they're interested in. So then you can see what they're doing, but it feels less like, you know, hovering over them, but you're actually like playing with them but at the same time realizing what it is they're doing and then also setting out. Yeah, like creating a set of rules together, ideally with your child, about what's safe to do on the Internet and what's not and really focusing on active screen time rather than passive screen time. Because studies have shown that the detriments of screen time are way different based on whether it's passive consumption time or whether it's active creating time. So if you're going to set a weekly limit, setting it, you know, differentiating that into the amount of time for passive consumption time and the amount of time for active creating time, which is ideally more than the passive consumption time.

That's interesting. We thought a lot about that and we worried about should we be putting limits on it and that kind of thing. But both our kids use their somewhat unrestricted exposure to technology to very good professional ends and in really different directions. Our daughter became very skilled creatively and our son became much more skilled in like math and coding and the more structured aspects of things. But really different and yet both a benefit of kind of being allowed to play and pursue what amused them. Right?

Yeah. That's amazing. It's all different in terms of how parents want to go about it, like setting limits versus not. But the fact is eventually the kids are going to have unrestricted access, so it is good to like have them practice managing their screen life balance while they're with you, if possible, like you did.

So talk about the work that you do with kids who have autism, ADHD and that kind of thing because that's a really challenging thing to deal with and seems to be far more either prevalent or our awareness of it is increased these days. And our world is set up to be highly distracting.

Yeah, it's so interesting because when we started out, our big focus was on teaching STEM skills, science, technology, engineering and mathematics and trying to close that gap or that shortage of tech trained workers that the world is currently facing. But what started happening is we started having all these families sign up whose kids had autism or ADHD anxiety. And we were hearing from them that their kids were experiencing benefits from the programs. And we also heard that children's mental health professionals were referring kids to us because of the results that they've seen. So we're really interested in pioneering this area of technology therapy, kind of like art therapy or music therapy, by using technology for therapeutic benefit. For example, we recently ran a program in partnership with an autism organization. It was a Minecraft based social skills group. And so in each session, the therapist from the autism organization would teach a social skill or a certain set of social skills. And then our instructor would lead Minecraft exercises. For those that don't know Minecraft, it's like this really cool game that's like LEGO on your screen. And a lot of families I speak to say it's like the only video game they'll let their kid play, or it's also being taught as a subject in some European school. So it's like a really cool program. So anyway, our instructor would teach some Minecraft exercises that would enable kids to practice those social skills they'd just been learning. And it was amazing. The autism organization had a therapist sit in on the sessions like a second therapist, and they noticed results and outcomes as of the second class. So it's really neat. And I think where it comes from is it's an opportunity for kids to be recognized for creativity in an area they might not normally see as creative, like art, writing or music, but now they realize they can like engineering and coding and such can be creative. It also allows them to feel power by creating something that other people can use when they're making something using technology. And they get to connect with like minded friends. And when they're so engaged in something like a game or creating a game, they sometimes take more social skill risks that they then end up transferring to other parts of life. For example, we had some kids who unfortunately had a traumatic experience with an adult in their life years prior who then never spoken to an adult other than their parents for many years. And then in our Minecraft programs, they were so engaged that without thinking about it, said, hey, teacher, teacher, can you help me with this thing? And the mom who was sitting on the sidelines burst into tears because it was the first time they'd spoken to adults other than their parents in a long time. And then they went on to speak to other adults after that. So lots of really cool outcomes. Kids attending their first camp and being able to successfully go through a week of camp for the first time and then going to other camps and many other cool stories.

Really cool. You also talked about playing with not just Minecraft, but also AI chatbots. Tell us about that.

Yeah, well, since AI is becoming such a big thing and will continue to. We've been teaching kids AI through our coding program a little bit. So kids have been building chatbots. For example, a popular one is all around favorite color. So one kid's chatbot would say, what's your favorite color? Oh, red. Cool. That's my favorite color, too. Want to see a picture of my cat? Or what's your favorite color? Oh, blue. Cool. Mine's red. Want to see a picture of my cat? They love creating these chatbots and interacting with each other's chatbots.

Playing with it, seeing how far they can take it.

Yeah, definitely.

Now they come up with anything besides their cat.

I mean, cats is certainly a popular aspect of it. They also code video games and websites. We've had even one kid made a website for his dad's business, so that was pretty cool. And they've made really cool robotics projects, too, like making night lights that light up when it gets dark. Making smart houses where there's, like, a little fan inside and an LED light inside and all the elements you can. You'd see in a house. Lots of cool creations, for sure.

So what ages are you working with?

Ages 6 to 13.

And then now are you doing stuff at higher ages as well? When you talk about your career and things like that, Tell us about the article and what your focus is there.

Yeah. So when I was trying to figure out what I wanted to do next and doing that shadowing with folks in the Bay Area, I ended up deciding to write an article about it because I guess through my experience with career dissatisfaction, I came across some research that said over 80% of people are dissatisfied with their careers, according to a Deloitte study, which is so high. And so one of my goals became to help with that. And so I feel like I'm helping with that through maker kids, through working with kids to help them be set up with the confidence and skills to find or create a career that's a great fit for them. And then also wanted to do some work with adults. So yeah, I wrote an article about the process that I'd gone through in Silicon Valley and this sort of career design process I'd kind of developed using principles from quantified self, lean methodology and design thinking to find my own career and then help some other people find theirs to. And that article somehow went viral, I think, because they titled it how I figured out what to do with my life next. And a lot of people Google the term like how to figure out what to do with my life. And then hundreds of people started emailing me asking for more information. So I ended up writing a book about it which came out recently with a publisher called how to figure out what to do with your life next.

So talk us about that process. What are the parts of the process, how does it flow? What did you learn there? Share a little bit of that for sure.

Yeah. So it's all about prototyping your career. So instead of, for example, just jumping into something like law school, like a five year commitment to become a lawyer without ever having experienced a day in the life, it's all about like trying to get an informational interview or shadow experience or even internship with a law firm before deciding to make a huge commitment like that so that you don't end up five years later in a law firm for the first time ever and realize, oh, hey, I actually don't like this after having invested all that money and time. And so the process is, it's a design thinking based process where you first get to know yourself a little bit more. And a lot of people think, oh, I already know myself. But it's like, what are your core values? What's your purpose? You know, what are you really looking for in a career? So that instead of doing a spray and pray approach where you just apply for anything and see what will take you, you narrow it down to your top three choices and then try and really take a targeted approach. So after getting to know yourself, you can figure out what your top options are, what options you're considering from a career standpoint. Could be 10 options, 100 or even more. And then figure out ways to do what I call minimum viable commitments to test them out. So minimum viable commitment is kind of like minimum viable product in startup world. The smallest possible thing you can do to provide value to a customer, or in this case, figure out whether or not you would like a career. So there's a spectrum from like reading magazine articles to doing informational interviews to shadowing and internships. It goes from low to high commitment. So you can start with low commitment for each, the options you're considering. And then narrow them down if you, if you find something out about them that you're not interested in. And then get more into higher commitments to then narrow down and at each stage, narrow down options or maybe even keep the same options until you get to your top three. And then figure out how to make yourself the best candidate for those positions or to create your own position through entrepreneurship. So that's kind of an overview of the process.

Now in your process, how do you get the initial, initial brainstorm list? Where do the ideas come from for what I might even want to do or think about being on that list?

That's a great question. So it's partly from that know yourself experience where you can, you know, get to deeply know yourself through things like meditation, digital detoxes, you know, 360 degree reviews, career counseling, career tests, that sort of thing. And then once you know yourself a bit more, setting out a list of what criteria you're looking for in a position, such as size of company, everything from casual versus formal environment, how good you are at a position, how much you like it, how much you can make at it, how much it helps the world. And then do research to brainstorm what sorts of positions might be a fit through doing online research, informational interviews, LinkedIn, all sorts of different things to figure out. A, what you might have already been thinking of that might be an option, and B, what are some things out there that you might not have heard of before?

There's a book I often recommend to people in this. So some of those things apply really well for and sound like things that someone would do in the early stages of their career. They've worked through some things. There's a reflection, you know, so a kid, a young person, might not think about a 360 interview, right? But you could actually think about and talk to your friends and teachers and others about who you are. So thinking about that idea applied at each stage of life so early in a career, mid career, or even for a very young person, thinking about who you are, what you love best. The book that I often recommend is what color is your parachute? And it's been actually many years since I read that book initially, and I'll bastardize it, but here's what I remember decades later is that it really had you reflect on different memories, experiences, projects, initiatives, undertakings of your life, and then think about not only what they were, but who you were in them, what kinds of strengths you relied on, what parts of things you loved And a lot of people have asked me like how my career was so varied, how come I worked in so many different industries at different levels. And I think a lot of it was that it was like that, well, I could do this because this has that and that and that and that. And it connects together in this way. And not only could I see it for myself, but I could make the case for it. Speaking isn't hard for me, but I think that ability to reflect on that that you're speaking to there, look across all these different things and you might see some little project or some side thing or even a nonprofit thing that you did that might make you think of something for your, like for profit or your career or entrepreneurial pursuit, right?

Oh yeah, definitely, yeah. I have a list of questions that I like to go through and suggest people to go through. That's in the book. Thinking back to what did you love to do when you were a kid? What are some key themes that have come up throughout your life? How do you want the world to be different when you pass away? Like all sorts of different questions to help generate some of those ideas. And for kids, yeah, there's great opportunities for them to do things like take your kid to work day. There's different programs where they have the opportunity to get more exposure to industry. I think it's great too how a lot of schools and universities have started to do more like hands on projects with companies so that students can start to get a better understanding of what work is actually like and what, what sorts of roles they might like. And also it's really key for them to be equipped with the skills and mindsets to be able to then go on to achieve the roles that they might be interested in.

You know, it's interesting, I think about, you're reminding me of different childhood experiences. And there were three, there were four, four big adult like work things that I can remember right off where I spent an appreciable amount of time in a particular sort of band. There was my grandfather on my dad's side who was a banker and he ran a bank branch division or something like that. He had a couple different jobs and I remember going to them and it was very formal and austere and I didn't get to do a whole lot. I just sort of observed things and I was amused by the things he had in his office. As I got older, I. I wasn't allowed to do much, but by not getting hands on with much of anything, you know, I didn't come away with A whole lot. I remember it was big, formal, it was very cold and not particularly friendly. And I remember the lesson of compounding interest and how important it was to like, save money and not have credit cards or debt and that kind of thing. Those are things that he mainly taught. Then my grandmother, also my dad's side, she ran a print shop and at a university. And I remember going over there and I loved the machinery and the working and that they produced stuff. And I got to learn the offset printing and the Xerox process and all those things. And then I would ride my skateboard around the UCLA campus like that. But I had a very different, much more ingrained thing there because I could touch and interact with things, whether it's delivering jobs or helping with things and so on. My grandfather on my mom's side was an attorney. And when I was a kid, he mostly had a private practice with a couple other attorneys. And one of the key jobs that I did and many of the cousins did was be a runner. So you'd take papers over to get filed and stamped and bring back and forth and so like. But it gave me a window into like, what. What the lawyer's office was like. And the movement of papers and filing was fascinating and engaging, you know. And I didn't become a lawyer, so clearly I didn't get deep enough or it didn't resonate with me. My dad was a. An entrepreneur and an author and also a college professor. And I remember in one of his offices, he had this huge space and I sat up. You had to sort of climb up to work. Great for a kid. But I had up there like, chemistry set and little robotics kit and some parts to make computer stuff and really early simple circuit things. And it was a long time ago because I'm old, but anyway, and then being there, I had access to like a formal darkroom and the chemistry lab. So I wasn't limited to like the kids chemistry so that I could get the stuff I probably shouldn't have had and like, make more interesting chemistry experiments, that kind of thing. But I got a view into how he interacted with people, what the classroom was like, the thinking, and not just from the genetic makeup and predisposition, but I lean a lot more towards that than the other thing. It was really good, really sweet quality time to get in there and be in those work environments and see them.

That's amazing.

That's interesting to think about. What do we expose our kids to? I know some entrepreneurs who teach their kids very formal, like, here's the planning process, and here's what you do. We didn't really do much of that with our kids, but we let them be around the business, around work, touch things, interact with things, and they picked up different things on their own from all of that experience. Right. What is it that you're letting them and what is it you're hiding or shielding them from or. Many times we felt bad, like maybe we hadn't exposed, you know, we shouldn't have exposed them to that. But I think they learned things by seeing us deal with different challenges.

Oh, yeah, definitely. It's so beneficial for kids to be able to get exposure to different career options and. Yeah, like, different projects that they can work on or help out with. And even in a small way or sometimes in a big way, like, kids imagination is so uncapped that they can really add a lot of cool ideas. For example, listeners may have heard of the marshmallow challenge, where you have spaghetti sticks and try and build the biggest tower, the tallest tower, to put the marshmallow on top. And kids in kindergarten actually outperform MBA students because they are just trying and experimenting, whereas the MBA students are planning it out and they don't end up finishing, sometimes within the allotted time. So we've seen kids come up with like, remarkable innovation ideas, and it's so cool to see them, like, have the technologies and ability to actually bring them to life and think about how that might change the world. I even had a student go do a talk on my behalf. It was a panel with the VP of Pearson Education. I just wasn't available. I was double booked. So I had a high school co op student who was working with us go take my place on the panel. And he did such a great job, no one even knew. And then partway through, like during the Q and A, he said something like, oh, yeah, at my high school this, or like my high school teacher that. And I'm currently a high school student. And apparently the whole audience gasped because they had no idea.

Isn't that cool? Isn't that cool? Yeah, that's really cool. I think it's so the key. You could go look up this. Is it called Marshmallow Challenge?

I think so, yeah.

You could probably Google that or go search on YouTube for that and you probably find it. But it's interesting that kids will brainstorm and iterate on things and be building things all the way through, whereas the MBA students try to divide up teams and choose roles and figure out who's in control and who's doing what. And they'll think about the strengths. And that's nice and really well suited to sort of longer term or more complex challenges. But sometimes you miss the opportunity right in front of you there. And certainly with that particular challenge, kids do better than adults with it, right?

Yeah, absolutely.

Jockeying for position, building their fiefdom for their 15 minute exercise.

It's amazing when kids get in there with something like Minecraft or Blocks or Robotics, they're just building right away. And I feel like as adults, sometimes that whole just ability to paint and not worry what it looks like or whether you're good at it or not or something gets taken away a little bit. And so it seems like kids have more of a bit of an uncapped imagination. They don't have limits that have been placed on them or that they've placed on themselves. And then they can build anything. And it's interesting too to like as an adult, put yourself back in that, in that place and think from a child's mindset sometimes.

I think there are things that we often forget that we loved as kids. And two things that really stood out for me that you were talking, that apply not just to the young people and the kids in our lives that we're trying to develop, but also to ourselves. What do you want to be remembered for at the end of your life after you're gone? What do you want to leave different in the world out of your having chewed up a lifetime here? And what do you actually love doing? There are things and we think about our strengths a lot. I'm a strengths coach. You can kind of see on the thing behind me, there's some of the Gallup tools. I use them nonstop with our teams, that kind of thing. It's really great to lean into strengths, but it's not necessarily a place of fulfillment if there isn't the play and the passion and that kind of thing that we care about. So I'm pretty articulate, I'm very strategic and I'm creative and don't hesitate to, to take charge of things and get started. But what gives me satisfaction is working with other people. If I only look at my strengths, relationship stuff is pretty low on my overall thing. It actually takes some effort and some cultivation. But when I contribute to and work with other people and take a minute to actually connect, I'm happy, right? I'm satisfied and fulfilled. And then I like playing with things in different ways. I like music, I like skateboarding, I like surfing, surfing. I like flying airplanes, I like sailing. These are things that are playful and like. So if I can bring all those things together, then I really feel like I'm living in the zone. Right. I'm like doing what I meant to do, but it's hard to think of that. Like a lot of times we suffer through some shit all week long and then we get drunk and go play on the weekend. But if somehow you could combine that stuff, wow. You'd be living a different kind of life, right?

Yeah, absolutely. I read in this book, the Monk and the Riddle by Robin Sharma, that there's three ways to view work. One is work to live where you're working to get money to then go do fun stuff on the side. Another is as a stepping stone where you're doing something to get to another career. And then the third is as a calling where this is your contribution and. And you're a gift to the world. And I think it's so key to bring elements of fun and play to work because. Exactly what you were saying. Like, one of my top marks in university was accounting. I was really good at it, but I don't like doing it, so that wasn't like a good fit for me to go on. So I think it's really that mix of, yeah, what you like to do, what you're good at, what you can make money at and what helps the world, and then being able to bring different aspects, like a portfolio of careers and passions that all together fuel your life. I'm a sailor too, by the way.

Nice. What kind of boat, what kind of.

Sailing do you do these days? Keel boats.

Yeah, so like keel boats or small?

Like last summer, for my pandemic splurge, my friend and I bought a 26 foot Grampian keelboat. So that's what we were sailing and playing around with.

Nice and lake or ocean?

Lake.

Yeah, like day sailing on the lake kind of thing. That's fun.

Sailing. Oh, staying overnight on it. That's.

Yeah, yeah.

A little floating cottage, so to speak. Especially because we weren't supposed to leave our cities because of COVID So that was like a good way to stay within the city but also have a little escape.

Well, you can't be Canadian without a cottage.

I guess so, yeah. I mean, that was a floating cottage.

For now, but eventually now in the off season, it gets pretty cold up there compared to say, southern us. So do you get. Is it. You probably haven't been in it in some months now, right?

Yeah, I haven't, no. In the winter it's like sort of closed, you know, it's we have to bring it out of the water. And then some people put bubbles on it or put a heater inside, but we didn't really do that.

Yeah, that's a different. A different thing. People hoist them and that kind of thing. Get them up on the hard. So I'm sure you're looking forward to the spring thaw now and getting back out there.

Yeah, it'll be fun.

Yeah. I think this. The other thing, I think is so much like in this play and exploration, what could you do? Where could you go? What could you go? Where could you follow interests? This is really easy to do with young people. Right. It's easy to throw them off to a camp or a class or that kind of thing and let them follow different interests and try real things in the world. Really interesting and different. What do they like to get their hands into and interact with and, you know, what. What places make them feel good? You know, I just. I feel good when I'm on the water and around the water. Right. And I noticed I used to sail mostly larger keelboats, and we've gone lots of, like, longer family sailing vacations, things like that, and with other couples, and that became nearly impossible. The club that I rented from for years, I didn't own a boat, but I rented from this club and. And shut down with the pandemic. And I'm like, I need to get on the water. So I took up this new kind of wind surfing thing called wing foiling, where you have a hydrofoil surfboard and a small handheld wing. And it's definitely tricky, but once you get going, it's very satisfying because you rip right along.

I do that too. We just tried it on the snow for the first time this year with, like, a board.

With skis. With the wing?

Yeah, with skis. Cause my family, we do, like, windsurfing and kiteboarding as well, and then wanted to try wing foiling. Seemed like the new hot thing and a little safer than kiteboarding and a little easier on the body than windsurfing. So, yeah, wing foiling is super fun. I haven't tried it on the water yet, but I'm excited to this year.

It's really humbling to get good at it. Hopefully this year I'll get good, but I can get. I can ride the foil, I can control the wing, and I can sort of jibe. I can't quite tack right, but I'm getting the hang of it. And then when the wind died, because our wind dies over the winter, there's very you get a couple of days here and there, but you don't get a lot of days. I also bought an electric foil. So now I have an E foil surfboard that helps me to just be in my happy place on the.

Oh, that's so cool. I haven't tried it. And are you on a foil board when you're wing foiling or what kind of board are you on?

Yeah, I have a mid sized sort of foil board. The various. The E foil is a much smaller board. The wing foil is a little bit bigger and I suppose as I get better at it, as I'm a little more stable, easier to launch, I'll go down in size on the board and maybe the wing. We'll see. I know I have two different wings foil sizes. We're getting very geeky on a whole look at all our listeners tuning up.

Right.

The hydrofoil surfing. I don't know. Figure out what you love or try that one. It's definitely a new, a new kind of a thing. And I tried the kite surfing. I didn't try kite foiling, but I tried the kite surfing and I liked it. I got up to ride in a pretty short period of time, but I found it just a bit complicated, a bit fiddly. Like, you know, there's the lines, you gotta launch the thing and you got the harness and you got the board and you've got your wetsuit. Like it just all felt like too. I don't know. I like the simplicity of the wing foil.

Yeah, I find kiting to be a little bit dangerous. Heard some sketchy stories. Wing foiling seems a lot, you know, easier.

Yeah, we have a lot of it here in the San Francisco Bay area. So the, the work. The book is how to figure out what to do with your neck with your life. Next, the website. Two websites, Maker Kids and Jennifer Turlock is spelled like turleyuk. We'll put it in the crawl here so people can see it. We'll put it in the show notes also so that you can read more about Jennifer's programs and, and your work and that kind of thing. I really appreciate you coming on the show. I want to thank everyone for joining us again. Whether you're viewing or listening or wherever you're getting it, like that kind of thing, it always helps us. If you like and subscribe, you get them automatically every week. You can subscribe wherever you get your podcast or you can go to scalingcoach.com, where you'll find the whole back catalog as well. All the show notes, links in the show notes to the tools that our people and offers things like that that our guests talk about all that@scalingcoach.com and I want to give some special shout out to Lucy Summers in the background there producing, getting our guests set up and that kind of thing. Special thanks also to Verne Harnish, author and creator of the Scaling Up Framework and the original Rockefeller Habits. The audio's edited by Albert Burge at Potfly Productions and our show notes or are written up by Ein Kadena, compiled by Ein Kadena and then proofread by Tim McGowan. Thanks Jennifer for coming on the show and thanks to everyone else for joining us. We'll talk to you again next time. Keep Scaling Up.

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