Matt Hunckler: From the crossroads of America in the Hoosier state of Indiana, this is Get IN, the podcast focused on the unfolding stories and extraordinary innovations happening right now in the heartland.

I’m Matt Hunckler, the host for today’s conversation, and this episode is a live recording from a Powderkeg executive summit. Where I was joined by co host Toph Day, CEO at Elevate Ventures. You’re about to hear a very special conversation about creativity, vulnerability, and play at work. We’re joined on stage by two of my very best friends and musical collaborators, Max Yoder and Jeff Banner, who also happen to be remarkable leaders and entrepreneurs in the powder keg community.

Max Yoder was the CEO and co founder of Lessonly, a learning management software acquired in 2021 by Seismic, a global leader of sales enabled software.

Max Yoder: Distinguishing between scary and dangerous is very difficult, uh, but if we can do more of it, uh, we can figure out the things that we can tinker around and the scary stuff, right?

You know, and some things, some things are dangerous but not scary. Every, you know, if I smoke a cigarette. That is probably dangerous, but in the moment, not scary. You get, you get the idea though. There’s things that we can do that are actually dangerous. They don’t trigger our scare. You know, and those things are really dangerous.

And one of the things that would, I would say is, is that is staying in a job that is not life giving is dangerous, but it’s not scary.

Matt Hunckler: Max is also the author of a couple of powerful books do better work and also to see it be it. Max loves to share his ideas on better work, wholeness, compassion, and leadership.

And this makes him a great guest to help us learn about creativity and play in the workplace. Jeb Banner is our other guest in today’s conversation, and he is currently the CEO at OpenDate, a live music automation platform that helps venues manage calendars, ticketing, artist discovery, and more.

Jeb Banner: Part of the problem is with business is that we’re so focused on efficiencies.

Creativity is inefficient by nature. It is wasteful by nature. And yet that is where the good stuff comes from. So building a culture where you have process and refinement and focus, and you have creative inefficiency. Is very difficult to do and especially doing that in a remote culture, I would say Um, and it’s something that I a code that I have been trying to crack for a long time And I don’t know the answer to it I just want to keep talking about it because to me it’s the thing that i’m trying to accomplish You know as a as an entrepreneur to create these states of creativity and success Lots of messiness and success.

Matt Hunckler: Before OpenDate, Jeb was most recently CEO and co founder of Boardable, a board management software company. He has also been a founder and investor in several other companies and nonprofits, including Smallbox, a brand experience company, the Speakeasy, the first coworking space in Indianapolis, and Musical Family Tree, an online archive of Indiana music.

In this episode, you’re going to learn about the transformative power of tinkering and play in any business, how to navigate judgment and criticism while embracing Vulnerability at work and a ton of actionable takeaways on creativity, risk, and finding your flow. If you are an entrepreneur or a leader building an innovation driven company, I would love to include you in an upcoming executive summit, like the one where we recorded the conversation that you’re about to hear.

So to learn more, send an email to our head of community, Nate Spangle, who is just Nate at powderkeg. com. That’s N A T E at powderkeg, all one word dot com. And now let’s talk with Max and Jeb.

I thought this would be a really interesting conversation. Um, cause we could talk about creativity, collaboration, improvisation, something that the three of us, uh, now.

Probably have a couple hundred hours doing together, um, outside of chatting about business. And I wanted to just dive right in and talk about those topics. I was wondering if you could just give a little bit of background on your experience. With music, because most people, I think, know you from your, your business endeavors here in Indiana.

Um, and if you, if you don’t mind just sharing really quick, a little bit of your own background, Jeb.

Jeb Banner: Yeah, um, everybody. Um, so I’ve been a musician since I was 12, 13 years old, just fell in love with music and had to figure out how to make it. Uh, I really wanted to learn music to, to make music, not to learn anyone else’s songs.

Uh, still don’t know how to really play anyone else’s songs. Um, and got into recording and then recording really opened a whole another world for me and my love is recording. I love recording and that’s something that we love to do together. And I discovered in college the power and just the experience, the transcendent experience, in my opinion, of playing live with other people in a free form, improvisational way.

Um, you know, beyond song structures. And that’s a lot of what we’ve started doing together over the last, um, few years. Well, Matt and I going back a long, long time, uh, with max the last four or five years. And, um, and it’s just, uh, it’s, it’s, uh, it’s hard to explain, uh, if you haven’t experienced it. But it is similar to different states of consciousness you get into with meditation, uh, and other things like that.

Um, and, uh, I’ve keep on asking myself the question of how do I bring this into my working life more so. And I think that’s part of what we’re trying to sort of pull on right now is how do we create these flow states. Uh, these creative flow states in, um, in other environments, you know, so I love music. I love playing with other people.

I love playing with these guys and excited to talk about this stuff. Me too. Thanks for being here.

Max Yoder: Yeah. Pleasure to be here. Good to see everyone. Um, the reason I’m interested in this conversation is I think we have this tremendous perfectionism that stops, uh, our souls from, I’ll speak for myself. I had a tremendous perfectionism that stopped my soul from experimenting.

And I think the antithesis of experiment, of perfectionism is experimentation. It’s tinkering. And music is a space where tinkering is, uh, highly rewarded. Because what I’m doing when I’m tinkering is playing. And I don’t mean playing like playing my guitar. I can be playing my guitar and not tinkering. I can be very imperfectionistic while I’m playing my guitar.

But if I’m freer when I’m playing my instrument, um, I’m just trying different things and seeing how they feel to me. It’s similar to how a little kid does. I have a three year old daughter and she is an excellent tinkerer. It’s built into all of our DNAs from the earliest ages to tinker. Stack something, see what happens.

Not because I ever want to tell anybody about the stacking I’m doing right now. My daughter’s not like, I gotta report on this to, you know, my Instagram following. She’s like, I’m just enjoying the thing that I’m doing right in front of me and I’m trying different stuff. And when it works, fun. When it doesn’t work, fun.

You know, I’m learning something out fell down. Why did it fall down? So what I love about the space that create the music creativity puts me in is I’m so much more likely to tinker and I’m so much more likely to take some of the lessons from tinkering back to to work and be more experimental as a result, because I realize when I’m tinkering, I find things I would not have found if I was not willing to explore things that don’t work.

And I just don’t think we have a lot of patience. For folks doing things that don’t work, and I think we don’t give ourselves a lot of patience for doing these things that don’t work, and I think that is to our own detriment, and to our own lack of, you know, life, and I’d like more life in the world, I think it’s really life giving to just be able to be like, it doesn’t matter that it didn’t work, because A day of effort taught me something, you know, whether it was the thing I wanted to learn or the thing I had to learn, it taught me something.

So I’m looking forward to this.

Matt Hunckler: Me too. And I’ll speak from experience because I think Jeb, you’re the one who really taught me how to jam. I used to play music, uh, you know, growing up as a kid, but it was always kind of like, what’s the chord progression? Like, what are we going to do? Uh, and when I started playing music with you, uh, you were just like, let’s just start playing our instruments.

And I’m not an accomplished musician. So I was like, what do you mean? Let’s just play our instruments. So I did a lot of falling down. Um, and you were gracious enough to let me fall down a lot. Um, and, and learning that. And since then it’s, it’s just become this like really cool flow state. And Toph, Toph and I have talked a little bit about this cause I’ve shared some of our jams with him.

Um, and Toph is actually a musician as well.

Toph Day: Well, I was just going to say I’m a little hurt. I haven’t been invited to your party yet. Um, I played the trumpet in the sixth grade. Uh, so I can play taps on the beagle. Uh, creativity is what we’re talking about tonight, right? So a lot of people talk about kind of two of the, if you really just boil it down to on and into entrepreneurship, entrepreneurship teams, a lot of people talk about grit and creativity.

And so we’re hitting creativity tonight in, in. Sangram Bhadre, we probably may have heard of him. Who wrote a book about go to market is a product, right? Uh, across all the disciplines of products, just one of those disciplines. I’ve noticed. It seems like there’s a lot of product people though, specifically that have music backgrounds.

Why do you think that is?

Jeb Banner: A lot of entrepreneurs have music backgrounds, my experience. Um, I think, um, musicians are entrepreneurs. I mean, like in bands, you know, your marketing, your, your, your, your. Leading your following your, you’re having conflict, you’re failing constantly. You’re going on stage and it’s going poorly.

You’re going on stage. It’s going great. You’re, you’re learning all these lessons constantly, very similar to running a startup. Um, and so, you know, in my opinion, people that have been through that journey, um, often are more willing to just kind of keep moving. When something goes badly, um, and it’s hard to get used to failure.

It is. I mean, we’re, we’re not like you’d perfectionism. We’re not raised in a society where everybody’s sitting around going, Hey, you know, you fell down. Um, and I think that one of the things I love about playing music is it, it’s a free space when done correctly, where you can explore, explore with others.

And there’s no judgment. There’s judgment later. And I think that that’s the, that’s the thing, you know, there’s, there’s a time of creation and then there’s a time of editing and discernment. Right. Um, and it’s separating those two, two times, you know, you’ve got different, different mindsets. We talked about this a little earlier.

Um, and if you get into that judgment mindset while you’re creating, that creation is stifled. And part of the problem is with business is that we’re so focused on efficiencies. Creativity is inefficient by nature. It is wasteful by nature. And yet that is where the good stuff comes from. So building a culture where you have process and refinement and focus.

And you have creative inefficiency is very difficult to do. And especially doing that in a remote culture, I would say. Um, and it’s something that I, uh, a code that I have been trying to crack for a long time, and I don’t know the answer to it. I just want to keep talking about it because to me, it’s the thing that I’m trying to accomplish, you know, as a, as an entrepreneur to create these states of creativity and success, lots of messiness and success.

Matt Hunckler: One of the things I feel, um, Really grateful for is your passion for recording because out of our hundreds of hours of jams, you captured a couple good hours of jams. And, uh, so I, I edited together a little like 90 second video that has some of the, the energy of our jams and one of our, our jams that you happen to capture.

So I wanted to share that with you all this evening, just so you have an idea of, of, uh, what we’re talking about here.

Max Yoder: I always wanted to sound like a tool playing a guitar. I think what really builds a creative space is mentorship and apprenticeship, and I would be an apprentice in this situation, and the mentors would be, you know, Jeb and Vess, who have been making music a lot longer than me with a lot more fidelity and clarity than I have, and the way that they show up to the space is in a very accepting way to no matter who is there.

If somebody is interested in playing guitar, and Jeb and Vess are around, and that person doesn’t play guitar a whole lot Either of them could play that guitar part with, with more fidelity and clarity, but it’s not really about that. It is about this person having an experience of being on pick up the guitar with other people and feel loved and trusted to do what they do.

And I’ve seen it again and again, where somebody given that encouragement and that space, even if they don’t have a lot of practice opens up in a different way and they’d never forget it. They call their, they call their spouse the next day and they go, I can’t tell you what happened last night because it was, It’s beyond words, but it was, I felt loved by other people, and I felt accepted by other people, and now I just want to keep playing more.

And so, just having the space to have two people who are mentoring, you know, Matt and I and many other people, and setting a tone. If Jeb and Vess show up and they’re like, hey, get this shit right, or don’t come back, I’m not coming back because I don’t get it right very often. Somebody asked me one time, Hey, have you ever been at a jam where somebody like wasn’t really flown with the jam?

And I was like, Oh yes, me. Every jam. Yes. Yes. Yes. I have been at many times in a jam where I’ve been overthinking something and I get invited back because It is really just about being us being together, but because because I feel accepted in those moments of it not working out, I’m much more likely to show up the next time with a little more practice and a little more like, all right, this time I don’t want to do what I did last time.

But either way, I’ll feel loved. Uh, and I think the word love in business just It’s so, um, mixed up. I think people hear love and business and they think coddling. Uh, if I consistently showed up and kept hitting the same wrong notes, I think Jed would pull me aside and go like, Hey, I think you need to practice more.

Um, but if I, if I show up and hit the wrong notes and then I show up the different, hit different wrong notes the next time, they roll with me and they, they give me the space to, to grow. And I think that mentorship is huge.

Jeb Banner: I kind of want to, let’s use a tech term, double click on a, it’s one of my, my most hated terms.

Um, I don’t really hate it. It’s just funny. Um, on love, um, double click on love. That’s a, that’s definitely a startup song. Um, that’s another story, but, um, I think that, that in my experience, it’s, it’s this weird third rail in business. Nobody, nobody talks about it, and yet it’s the most powerful energy and power that we have in our lives in the world.

And when you think about what makes, um, something really special, it’s usually something to do with friendship. It’s usually to do with something where you feel connected to other people and you’re, you’re feeling this bond. And if you think about like what some of the great businesses of the world Are built from they’re built from friendships and those friendships are built on love and yet we tend to look at business and try to Think about it through systems and processes and everything else when really if you ignore the love side of business And i’m not talking about romantic love i’m talking about human love for your fellow human heart energy Uh, you’re really missing out.

Um, and I think leaders that withhold their love from their people are also Taking away an energy source that can greatly grow that business. And I wish there was more conversation about that. In the creative experience, what I’m experiencing is love. You know, when we’re playing together. It’s coming through electric guitars and amplifiers, but it’s still love.

And, um, and I just, I, I love to be in that space and I, I want to bring others into that space. It doesn’t mean there isn’t critique at times. It doesn’t mean that there isn’t a decision later to say, you know what, that one wasn’t as good as this one. Uh, or you know what, um, I think that. Maybe you should not play the trumpet, you know, he’s not talking to you.

Tell you, try the keywords. Um, so I just want to, I just want to point that out because I feel like, uh, there’s There’s so much emphasis on all these other things, but underneath all that, that is such an important part of, of growing a vibrant, healthy business.

Toph Day: Amen. Is there a, is there a moment that you saw with one of the teams that you’re working in, you know, working with from the business side where you saw the yes and versus the, but mentality manifest itself from the jam sessions, the Into the conference room or or the brainstorming session.

Yeah, that you could draw an analogy with an example.

Max Yoder: Yeah, when I see that happening, uh, there is a lack of identification with the outcome. So, when I see people getting tightest and more critical, they believe that the outcome represents them. And if that outcome is not them good enough, then they are not good enough.

And when they’re flowing and they’re more creative and open and sharing different ideas that may or may not take, right? Which is a part of tinkering. Tinkering, you know, to define it would be, let’s throw a lot out and if something works, let’s double down on it. If we like it working, let’s double down on it.

If we don’t like it working, let’s cut it, right? But we have to do a lot to learn what works and what doesn’t. Um, and in a space where somebody is over identifying with the outcome, And thinking it represents them, the creativity goes way down. Uh, but if somebody goes, this thing ain’t me, none of this is me, you know, this is just something that I could influence, um, we have much more rich, uh, trial and error, because people are, are freer to think.

And to be clear, when we’re, when I’m talking about creativity, I’m, I’m not necessarily saying you’re gonna like my creativity. I’m not necessarily saying that it’s gonna be your Van Gogh. Not at all. I’m saying that is a space that I really want to be in and whether you like it or not is actually Not that interesting to me because if I enjoyed being in that space, I enjoyed being in that space I just want to be in it more So what I’m not saying is like we’re getting together and we have a recipe for you to make a hit record Maybe maybe not we just have a recipe I think that I’ve been lucky enough to feel of just making something and somebody else’s opinion on it is very very much You know not secondary.

It’s probably tertiary

Matt Hunckler: It’s probably a little bit human nature, and certainly, uh, in society today, everybody’s got an opinion, you open your phone, it’s hard not to see an opinion, um, and if you post something on social media, it’s hard not to feel judged to some degree. Because there’s a score, like there’s literally a score to whatever you post.

So what are some of the things that you do? And to feel free to chime in here too, um, to help calm down the ego or the, uh, whatever part of your brain is like, Oh, how is this going to be perceived? Or, um, I hope they like it. Uh, how do you get to that place that you’re talking about? Max of like, I am unattached to the outcome of whether or not someone likes this.

Jeb Banner: I’m doing it. I’m usually not I think I still struggle a lot with that and I still struggle a lot with the story I have in my head around what other people think of me and what I’m doing Uh, I’ve reputation matters a lot to me and I struggle with that too. So just be honest with you I I’m not I I get to that place sometimes and Meditation helps a lot to sort of like be more of the observer and less the actor, but still I struggle with that a lot.

We were just talking about this backstage. We’re working on a track, actually the one you played a sample of that we’re looking to put out soon. Just, it’s improvisational stuff. And so I guess talking to Max about putting it out and he’s like, it’s pretty precious. I’m like, it is precious. You’re like, it’s a little hard for me to put something out there and just be like, well, this makes sense to us.

Someone else might look at it and say, this just sounds like garbage. And I. How am I going to feel about that? And I’d be feel sad, you know, but on the other hand, it’s like, do I want to feel great because they like it? It’s like, I don’t know. I want to be in there. Do I want them in control of my emotions?

I struggle with that a lot. I just do. Um, it’s human. So I don’t have an answer on that one. Besides you kind of build up a little bit of just like playing guitar, you build up a little bit of, you know, calluses, you know, um, in some ways,

Max Yoder: Yeah, I would like people that go, Oh, this is really sweet. Um, Yeah.

Yeah. much every time. I’m not, I’m not above or over that. Um, I, I just, I see that everybody’s bringing their own personal, uh, presence. So if their presence is very stressed, Um, they’re going to read the song differently, right? They’re going to be more judgmental of it if their presence is under stressed, you know I doubt the buddha would ever go.

Hey this, you know, the second verse needs some help. She’d be like, um Very nice You know, it’s it I realize that everybody’s judging it through their own historical baggage um, but but I but I think what comes to mind for me is just having the bernie brown square squad of If you all

Toph Day: If you know who that is Thanks

Matt Hunckler: Yeah, Brene Brown, researcher on vulnerability.

Amazing. And she Oh yeah, Brene. I thought you said

Toph Day: Rene. Brene. Brene, yeah.

Max Yoder: And she does a wonderful thing called The Square Squad, which is like, hey, the world can’t be your critic, so pick a few people who you want to be critical, who love you. They’re not gonna criticize you because they get joy out of it.

Um, and I, I think, you know, fortunately for us in the music creation process, if you invest both go Mm-Hmm, , and then Matt goes, Mm-Hmm, . And Anthony goes, Mm-Hmm, , I’m, I’m like, if they all go mm-hmm, , it’s good enough for me, you know? And the rest, if the rest of the world goes, it’s like I can still look at those guys and go, this is pretty freaking sweet, wasn’t it?

And they’re like, Ah-huh. You know? So I, I like having a, uh. I think you’re, everybody’s self critical enough that you’re not going to go mm hmm to everything, you know? So having that safe space of just having the validation or invalidation of people who I know aren’t going to do it to hurt me. They’re gonna, they’re gonna really think critically about their criticism.

It helps me a lot. My wife, my wife being one of those people. I forgot about the square squad. Yeah, has everybody heard that term? The one inch by one inch by one inch. It’s a one inch by one inch square. You write as many names as you can fit on that one inch by one inch square front and back. And those are the folks who you allow to be really, uh, you know, judgmental to you.

Because you seek, you seek them out. Hey, I made this decision, what do you think? And those people are usually people who are very richly loving you. So they’re much likely to go, yeah, that you were a little annoying at that moment, or you were a little harsh at that moment, or they go, nah, I think you’re, you know, you’re being hard on yourself.

Um, it’s nice to have that nice to have a group of people. It’s not having nobody be your critic and not having everybody be a critic, right? It’s having a select base of critics. I love that.

Toph Day: I think about a couple of quick things that I’ll share. So one is, uh, I’ve practiced Yoga Nidra in the past, which is just getting your body into a state, um, where you clear clutter and focus on really what matters to you in your life at that moment.

And it can change every day, every week, whatever it may be. I also think about choices, right? We, we talk about, uh, you know, with our kids, uh, you know, life is about choices, making good choices. And, um, I think a lot of stuff comes down to communication, like, you know, back to all these little, these phrases that are out there, but, you know, the yes and versus the but concept, et cetera.

And, um, And, and, and trying to make a choice to lift people up and, and try to surround yourself with people that lift you up and that you engage with people that you lift up in turn, right? And you have to, like, give respect before you get respect in, um. And not engage, like, it’s like a big snowball, right?

If we engage with the negativity, then the negativity just gets stronger. But if we engage with positivity, that breeds positivity. And, uh, and so I think just being human with one another, right? And enjoying the company and being forgiving of, you

Matt Hunckler: That’s one of the things I liked about the Get IN podcast.

Yeah. Lots of play space.

Toph Day: Yep. 100%.

Matt Hunckler: Yeah. I think that’s a vibe. And, and for me, that’s, that’s like a, a thing I’ve tried to like actively bring out of our jam sessions and into, you know, the office with Meg and Nate and the rest of the team. Um, is just kind of, how do I create a space that’s safe to throw out ideas, to, to be a little bit playful, to joke around?

It got cut out of that video, but at the end of the power tool video, Max, you say, that’s what I’ve always wanted to sound like when I play the guitar, a tool. It was like, like that kind of like energy and fun, just like messing around. Um, that’s where good ideas tend to happen. And I’m curious. Um, I obviously could talk about this for another two hours.

Don’t worry, don’t worry. I’m not going to. Um, but as we kind of like come to a close of this section, Do you have an idea or actionable, um, takeaway or a challenge that you want to, uh, share maybe with the folks here, like next leadership meeting they’re in or next brainstorm session they’re in or next time they pick up an instrument.

Um, doesn’t necessarily have to be in the boardroom like the tambourine,

Toph Day: Like the tambourine tambourine. Can I come and play the tambourine?

Max Yoder: It’s a difficult instrument to play in a room, but yes, you feel free. Yeah, do you have anything?

Jeb Banner: Yeah, I think, uh, um, you know, when I think back to my, my journey as a, as a musician and as an entrepreneur, it was, it’s sort of like building blocks a little bit of just building habits.

And those habits then turn into some level of mastery, then the mastery is applied, and then the application of the mastery is where I get into flow states, and when I’m in those flow states, when I’m just like in that space where I feel I can, I can do no wrong, I can play no wrong notes, you know, uh, whatever it might be, um, I think, you know, look in your life and think, Where do I have curiosity, uh, around something that I could potentially have creative expression.

I think it’s a muscle to build and then you have to get to some level of mastery, whatever it is. And then that mastery then gives you the freedom to get into that flow state. So, um, start small, uh, start as small as you need to start. Uh, it could be just drawing little pictures on post it notes every day, whatever it might be, or going to piano and playing only the white keys, whatever it is, start small.

Because I think when you bring that into your life, it infiltrates the rest of your life. You bring play into your life, and you get back into the state of a child, and that childlike energy starts to infiltrate. Everything else you do, so just find ways to nurture it with habit and then have it to mastery and mastery to flow.

Max Yoder: Yeah, I would just encourage anybody, I’ll encourage my daughter, I’ll just use my daughter as a mental model, um, that just because you can’t sell it doesn’t mean it doesn’t have value. You know, if she were to paint and nobody ever cared about buying her paintings, but she really enjoyed painting, that is worthwhile to me.

And I think too many folks stopped doing something because there is not commercial viability. They’re not being applauded by the folks around them to say, you could do that for a living. Um, and so then they don’t do it at all, right? Because they don’t, they can’t do it for a living. So all of a sudden it becomes irrelevant to do it.

Um, and that to me is a bummer. Uh, I would prefer people were able to do it. Uh, and because it’s, it’s life giving in its own way, just not economical, you know, and economics is just a small slice of what makes life, uh, worth living. Then another thing I would say is, uh, recognizing the difference between something that is scary and dangerous, because I, I think when we’re, when we’re being intimate with one another, which is usually when we’re being creative or being intimate, we’re being vulnerable.

Um, It feels dangerous because the, the, the response of our body is one of threat and that, that response was built around. We’re actually in danger, right? We’re going to be eaten by the lion and where the zebra, but we’re having the same psychological or mental reaction to something that is like, I’m going to play somebody a song that is scary, but it’s not dangerous.

And if we distinguish scary and dangerous, I think, Uh, we can, we realize a lot of things are, are scary, but they’re not dangerous. And if we do the scary stuff, uh, many beautiful things come out of that. Uh, because all of a sudden, we, we’re exploring new places that there’s nothing really to fear. We’re not in danger.

Uh, it just feels scary because it’s the same psychological or, you know, bodily reaction, uh, that we’d have if we, if it was dangerous. And I think distinguishing between scary and dangerous is very difficult. Uh, but if we can do more of it, uh, we can figure out the things that we can tinker around and the scary stuff, right?

Some things are dangerous but not scary. You know, if I smoke a cigarette, that is probably dangerous, but in the moment, not scary, but delicious, but delicious. Yeah, delicious. But, but, but doesn’t

Jeb Banner: Don’t smoke kids.

No, no, no, no, you get, you get the idea though. There’s things that we can do that are actually dangerous that don’t trigger our scare.

You know, and those things are really fucking dangerous. And one of the things that would, I would say is, is that is staying in a job that is not life giving. It’s dangerous, but it’s not scary. Oh, it’s, you know, I can do this. I can do this for another 30 years. Dangerous, but not scary. So anyhow, distinguishing between the two.

Scary, but not dangerous. And dangerous, but not scary. I think is, is helpful.

Matt Hunckler: I love that. And, um, I could keep asking you guys questions all night. I’m sure you could too, Toph. Maybe we do the extended cut in the studio and bring some instruments. You bring your tambourine.

Toph Day: So I do get to play the trumpet.

Matt Hunckler: Hey, if you got chops,

Max Yoder: I think we should do it. Even if you don’t, let’s do it. I think so. all, appreciate it.

Jeb Banner: Well here’s, I’ll give you some advice James Brown gave on music. Think of every instrument as a drum. Is the best advice on playing music, even if you’re just playing one note. Think of it as a drum.

It’s rhythm, rhythm, rhythm, rhythm. So bring your trumpet and think of it as a drum play one note in rhythm.

Toph Day: I have one, I do have one last quick question. Um, so we’ve talked about music here tonight as is the kinda the foundation, the backdrop of this creativity. Where, where, where other places that you’ve seen people gather?

Men, women, men and women, et cetera, that are, um, that, that are great gatherings to celebrate and proliferate. Uh, creativity in a, in a, in an environment where people feel comfortable doing that to let their brains and their minds and their bodies expand

Jeb Banner: improv groups. I know a lot of people enjoy those. I think that’s a great creative space.

Um, they terrify me talk about scary and dangerous, terrifying, not dangerous, super scary for me. But, um, I think those are, those are great environments. I think dance is another one. I’m a terrible dancer, but, um, you know, like those are different creative space spaces like that, that are safe and available to people.

I think it’s just, yeah, get out there and, and just build that creative muscle, that muscle of play and bring it back into every other area of your life. Um, go back to being a kid at least, at least once in a while. Otherwise, what’s the point? You know, I’m not advocating suicide here. I’m saying, like, you know, like, what’s the point of, like, working so hard if we can’t, like, be playful and joyful?

Max Yoder: Anything you’d add, Max? Just that play, play is a ticket. And, like, let’s think about what play is. It’s the first way we learn. Children learn through time. Through playing. And, uh, we, then we later go, oh, playing is worthless, and playing is, you know, for little kids, and it’s like, that is the formative way of learning.

We do not formatively learn by sitting at a desk and being, you know, given rote assignments. We formatively learn by tinkering with something openly without any agenda. And that’s what, that’s what playing is. So any space where, where people can play together. It’s increasingly difficult in adulthood, right?

And that’s what I like about music is, I can, the same way I played with my friends with toys, I can play with my friends with instruments. I can do something funny and they might do something funny back. Or they might do something funny and I can go along with it. And if you watch Toy Story, the kids playing in Toy Story are great examples.

In any of the movies, there’s Bonnie and there’s Andy. I’ve watched many of them. I have a three year old daughter. And they do a really nice job of showing what play looks like. In one of the movies, Andy has He’s really playing hard, and he’s got a certain storyline, and his sister comes in and knocks down one of the main parts of the storyline, and he just turns it into a new storyline.

He flows with it. And that is what playing looks like, and I think we lose the capacity to do it as we get older, or we lose our comfort with it as we get older. But we all know how to do it deep in our souls, which is why it’s important to find ways to get back there.

Jeb Banner: We call that a pivot.

Max Yoder: A pivot. He totally pivots.

Matt Hunckler: Jeb’s here for the startup buzzwords. Yes. Double click on the payment. Double click on the pivot. Jeb Max. Thank you so much. Let’s give it up for Jeb Banner, Max Yoder, and our fearless co hosts, Christopher Toph Day.

This has been Get IN, a Powderkeg production in partnership with Elevate Ventures, and we want to hear from you.

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