Shownotes

Pre-cut or organic veggies? Redesigning experiences big and small, Mallory Gott joins the podcast today to share her framework for creating transformation and her twist on Mad Libs.

If you have any comments or questions about the Be It pod shoot us a message at beit@lesleylogan.co. Or leave a comment below!

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In this episode you will learn about:

• Redesigning around simple, easy and fun
• The four parts to the framework
• Shifting your paradigm
• Giving yourself permission to design a experience that you enjoy

References/Links:

• G+A website: https://www.gaexperiences.com/
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mallorygott

Transcript

INTRODUCTION

Lesley Logan 0:00
Be It listener this episode is all the things, it’s just so great. So um, I, I’m really do, I’m, I’m constantly amazed by the people that I get to meet in this world and I hope that you, I hope that you get to have that experience in your life as well. And, and I will say like it is by putting yourself in really weird uncomfortable and blind date-ish experiences. But when you, when you do that, and you open yourself up to meeting new people and interesting people, it’s really amazing what can happen. And this this woman, this guest is Mallory Gott and I just friggin’ love her. I love what she’s doing. It amazes me, her job sounds so freakin’ fun. And also, the tips and advice she gives. Like, you know, she puts on these amazing experiences for even big companies and products. But she gave, she gave such great insight for like even redesigning your home, you know, and, and all the tips she gives like, can really change your day. I will be really honest, before we recorded this episode, I was just having a really raw rough long morning of meetings and meetings like that I was like, not excited. (Lesley laughs) And it’s not because I don’t love what I do but sometimes work just feels like work. And and after listening to her and her tips and her advice. It changed my mood, it changed my my spirit. And then I really did take her advice, her BE IT advice. Literally, I wrote some words down of how I want this week to feel and this day to feel. And I have changed my outlook on the whole thing and I think that’s really powerful in being it till you see it in your life. Like there. We don’t have to slog through things, we don’t have to just get it done. We don’t have to drag ourselves across the finish line, we can actually using adjectives and her tips. Absolutely change the way you are in that moment that you’re in, including when you hear her talk about chopping vegetables. And so, I am so grateful for Mallory, I’m actually really grateful for our mutual friend Megan, who introduced us, because I got to have this experience in this conversation. But I am actually even more grateful for you because you listen to the show each and every week. And you tell your friends about it and you share it and you tell me your favorite parts. Because of you, I got to ask this amazing, incredible human being to be on this show. And so thank you, thank you for being you. And thank you for being part of this entire be it till you see it mission. If it wasn’t for you, I would just be asking random people to be on Zoom calls with me and recording them and they might think that’s weird. So, (Lesley laughs) so you’re a big part of how this happened. So here is Mallory Gott.

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Lesley Logan 3:29
Welcome to the Be It Till You See It podcast where we talk about taking messy action, knowing that perfect is boring. I’m Lesley Logan, Pilates instructor and business fitness coach. I’ve trained thousands of people around the world and the number one thing I see stopping people from achieving anything is self doubt. My friends, action brings clarity and it’s the antidote to fear. Each week, my guests will bring Bold, Executable, Intrinsic and Targeted steps that you can use to put yourself first and Be It Till You See It. It’s a practice, not a perfect. Let’s get started.

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EPISODE

Lesley Logan 3:29
All right. I have Mallory Gott here. Ah, I’m so excited we’re finally doing this. We had too much fun talking the night away because a mutual friend, Megan, who’s going to be on the pod as well. And actually, she was the one who said, “You should be on my podcast.” And and so I was like, “Let’s meet up,” and she planned this whole thing. And it’s true. Like we were talking I was like, Oh my gosh, first of all, I love this woman. I can’t, I want to be our friend all the time. (Mallory laughs) And, I feel like Las Vegas is a lot like LA, like, once you start working and traveling, even the locals aren’t around as much. (Lesley laughs) So um, so we’ll still have to make another date happen. But Mallory, I’m so glad you’re here. You’re out in the world doing your thing. Can you tell everyone who you are and what you do?

Mallory Gott 4:13
Yeah, well, thank you very much for having me. And shout out to Megan, who apparently is going to be on podcast also for getting us together. I appreciate it. So my name is Mallory Gott, but I go by Mal because it’s easier and it’s more fun. And when you and I met I got to share a little bit with you. And we shared a lot about both of our kind of respective work areas but about my experiential design firm. So long story short, because we’re going to get into long story long in the next little bit of time here (Lesley laughs) and I don’t want to, you know, kind of kill the vibe right out of the gate. But in experiential design, where I started was really with event design and production. But slowly and then not slowly at all, it expanded into these other areas. And now experiential design has really taken the shape of a framework that I’ve built, that I use with a variety of clients, where we look at any experience you might have, whether it’s on a team level, an individual level, a project level, and we design it with a feelings led approach. And we’ll talk I’m sure about what that means. But it basically means we get to think about how somebody or a group of somebodies want an experience to feel. And then we help them design that experience and the process that they go through, building it out, to evoke those feelings as frequently as possible. So, it’s pretty, pretty cool stuff.

Lesley Logan 5:28
It is so cool. So so I, inquiring minds, mind want to know. Do do you just love how many different experiences you get to be part of because like, I feel like every day is, every every experience is gonna be different.

Mallory Gott 5:42
They are, they’re really, really different. And I do and you know, one of the things that I really love, and it’s, it’s a lot of fun for me, when I get to have conversations like this, and I don’t just say that, like, you know, “Oh, it’s a lot of fun to talk about it.” But but it’s a lot of fun, because it reminds me that I can design the experiences in my day to day life, using the same framework that I would share with anybody who said, we have this to redesign, right? Like we have like a restaurant brand to redesign which we’ve done, or we have, you know, a 7,500 person trade show that we’re trying to redesign, which we’re actively doing right now. Or an art gallery that needs to find more customers like these are all things we’ve done. And so you know, you and I were talking right before we officially clapped into the podcast, about the experience of traveling for work as beening one of the things that we’re now ramping back up on. (Lesley: Yeah) And kind of we weren’t specifically talking about the framework. But one of the things like the way that I try to design the experiences with my business or my day to day are around things being simple, easy and fun. That’s the way I want stuff to feel. So, you know, we got to talk about like, well, what makes some of this travel simpler or easier or more fun. And I could go into a whole rabbit hole, we touched on a couple things. But like having this conversation, it is a great reminder. And it doesn’t matter whether anyone that we work with is talking about, like I want to redesign, you know, the way that I experienced trying to find a life partner like dating, the dating experience, (Lesley laughs) or which you know, I’ve had people say like, “I hate trying to find, I hate trying to date like this experience sucks.” And I’m like, “Great. So, I bet you don’t want it to feel like it sucks, right? So like, let’s put it through the framework.” Or I’ve had people come in and say, you know, we need to redesign this brand rollout or this product launch. And and it doesn’t matter what the experience is, it’s the same, it’s the same framework. (Lesley: Yeah) And it’s cool to be able to see how it can be applied in so many different ways.

Lesley Logan 7:29
That’s really cool that you said that because I think we almost forget the experiences that we have. And we’re like, for example, you have a friend is like, “Dating is not fun, this experience isn’t fun.” And she might not think that someone who also helps launch a product can go, “Well, here, let’s actually put it through this framework. And let’s make it more fun.” But I think we forget that we have these tools at our disposal. Like, if you have something in your life that’s already simple, easy and fun. You might be able to like, recreate the wheel (Lesley laughs) (Mallory: Mm-hmm) with something else. So okay, so you do big product launches, conference launches, and then also you are a dating coach on the side apparently. (Lesley and Mallory laughs)

Mallory Gott 8:12
Well, I should, I should be very clear, I am not a dating coach. And in fact, (Lesley laughs) I should be the last person to be a dating coach. But what I am a good coach of and what the framework eventually expanded to include were individual experiences that people had. And understanding that you know, how you want an experience to feel regardless of what the experience is. And I can help you figure out how to take it through a set of simple steps that will allow you to create the experience to evoke those feelings. So in this case, it just so happened to be dating, but by no means, “Am I (Lesley laughs) a matchmaker?” I mean, (Lesley: Mallory …) you know, that’s… (Lesley: Don’t call her. Don’t call her) (Lesley laughs) I have, I have many nice friends male and female and non binary and I would be happy to introduce them to people as substitute (Lesley laughs) But like that’s not my bailiwick, first and foremost. So just a quick disclaimer there. But yes, it runs the gamut.

Lesley Logan 9:05
So okay, um, I think, you know, there’s, if you’re listening, you’re like, “Okay, but I don’t have a lot product launch.” It’s like, but you do have like, Thanksgiving parties, you’re putting on or Halloween events, or I put on retreats and something that I think people one thing that I’m very clear on, and I probably should still use your framework is. “When I’m having a business retreat coming here in March to Las Vegas.” And I was like, “Okay, how do I want them to feel? What I want them to prioritize? Like, what are those things?” And putting, making sure that those are the things that are in the schedule, in the calendar to make sure that that’s what what happens? Not everyone starts that way. What what have you seen, like, what are the mistakes in planning of experiences and like, what should we be thinking about instead?

Mallory Gott 9:55
Yeah, so that’s a great question. And, you know, for people who are going, “Yeah, that’s cool if you plan a giant trade show, but like I’m trying to do a home renovation.” Right? Like, “What are you talking about?” So it’s really great because, again, it can be so ubiquitously applied. So just to take, I’ll kind of do a quick parallel of what you’re describing with the retreat that you’re going to be organizing and putting on. And then I’ll just use the example of a home renovation because I got to do this. This was the one that another person I worked with was like, “Alright, this experience in the past has been really horrific and I don’t want it to be that way again.” So like, “How do we do this?” Right? So if we were to look at it in terms of the the four steps of the framework, or the four different kind of parts of the framework. The first one will be how you want the experience to feel, we’ve already said that. So in the case of the retreat, you may identify, I usually encourage people to identify three to five additives that describe the ideal feeling that this experience will evoke. And then for the person doing the renovation, the same thing, right? So a lot of times when we start people are thinking about the end product. So, I’m thinking about how I want the retreat to feel for people who are buying it and coming to it, or I’m thinking about how I want the renovated space to feel once it’s complete. And I kind of take those those additives and I list them out. Then the second step is where we actually start looking at whether you know, whether you’re thinking about the experience design and those feelings in terms of how you want the process of building that experience to feel for you. So a lot of people can start with the end product and go, “Cool, I want this retreat to feel, you know, informative, or relaxing, or inspirational or I want this renovation to feel, you know, calming and cozy. And I want it to feel like warm or biting or whatever.” But then when I start to take them through the second part where it’s like, well, what does that look like for you as the person building the experience? They, it starts to feel a little bit murky, and they’re like, (Lesley: Yeah) “What are you talking about?” And that’s where I have to say, “Well, if you can’t, you know, let’s use the renovation.” If you don’t feel like the experience of picking out your contractors, going to pick out your you know, your your design materials, working with an interior designer, if you’re choosing to do so even selecting the time that you want the renovation to start and scheduling it. If those things don’t feel calming and inviting, and relaxing, like it’s gonna be tough for you to get to an end product that feels the same way. Or if as you’re designing the retreat itself, you know, you’re not feeling inspired, you’re if every single thing feels like you’re pulling teeth, or you’re not feeling like it’s informative, like you’re getting kind of invigorated during the process of putting it together, then it’s gonna be difficult. You, people can do it, and people do it all the time. But usually, that’s the part where you’re just, you start to get into this mindset of like, “Okay, we just have to get through it, we just have to get to the end.” And when you’re in that mindset, the experience is no longer, you’re no longer designing the experience. (Lesley: No) The experience is basically running roughshod over you, you’re hoping to just cross the finish line. So those are kind of two of the earliest steps. And then we go through that, that very natural part that people’s response to designing an experience for themselves, which is like, “Okay, that’s all well and good.” But like really, that’s, that’s probably not going to work. Like I can’t feel inspired all the time, during the process of building a retreat, or I can’t feel inviting and cozy or comfy while I’m trying to put. You know like, I have to be so analytical or I have to get things done. And we really work through what are the things that are just the untruths, about the way we typically design the experiences that we have, where we kind of think it’s only once we get across the finish line that we can experience those feelings.

Lesley Logan 13:33
Yeah. And I think like this listening to you, I’m like, “Oh, my gosh, I have to redo like 17 other things.” (Lesley laughs) Because it is true, like I’m even sitting here right now, like, as we’re recording this, it’s the end of towards the end of 2021. And I’m like,” I just got to get to December 12. If I can get to December 12.” (Lesley laughs) (Mallory: Yeah, yeah) And that’s not fun. I’m not having fun going, “I just got to get to December 12.” Like, it’s like I feel like those mer… like those Iron Men, like who watch them. And they’re like crawling across the finish line, and I’m like would love to just walk across with my head held up high. And (Mallory: Yeah) so I need to go back to my additives of how I want everything to feel so that I can actually (Mallory: Yeah) experience it now. So how, so okay, then the next thing is if people can identify the adjectives of the thing that they want at the end, and then they can look at that as the experience. What are, what are some things that the person doing the home renovation or someone creating the retreat. What are they, what can they do in their step one? Like, do you know what I mean? Like, what’s that first next step to get started in that?

Mallory Gott 14:40
Yeah, so one of the ways that I try to help people with this because for a lot of us, including myself at times, and that’s why I was saying to you, it’s not a, it’s not just lip service to me to have these conversations because it is a reminder to me about how to reintroduce this into my own life all the time, right? Like you teach it and you do it but sometimes it’s easy to lose track of it for yourself. (Lesley: Yeah) So when when we’ve had people, you know if people can identify those adjectives and and I encourage people to get really specific, because it’s a lot easier to understand whether something you’re designing as like an interim touch point, gets you closer or further away to something that is, let’s say, the inspirational or the adjective is dazzling than it is to say, “Oh, it’s good,” you know, like, well, what’s good? Right? Goods really kind of nebulous, it’s kind of vague. So (Lesley: Yeah) if you can identify those adjectives first, then the next step is for most people, because they want to jump right into it. But it’s such a big paradigm shift to think about the experience and the adjectives first is to start with something really, really small and almost innocuous, or maybe not even related to the big experience that you’re designing. So if you’re, you know, the person that’s doing the home renovation, and you’re you’re, you’ve picked the adjective of what was once inspirational or cozy or inviting or whatever. Then you know, instead of going like, “Okay, now I’m going to go out and pick a general contractor. And I’m going to do a whole design and da da da.” And the first thing you might do might be to just go to the Lowe’s or Home Depot near you, and walk through the hardware section. And I mean, like the cabinetry hardware don’t, or unless you love tools, go to that hardware section, wherever you want to go. And just look at like, “If I hold up two things, which one do I think is cozier,” you know? And be honest with yourself like, “Is this cozy or this cozier? Or do I really love farmhouse modern? Or am I really like back in the day buffet, and I love Baroque weirdo, you know, or handle, (Lesley laughs) handle cabinetry.” But because like so many times, we’ll tell ourselves like, “Okay, I want it to feel cozy. But everybody does farmhouse modern right now. And that’s what I should be doing.” It’s like, maybe you should be, or maybe you shouldn’t be. You know, and if you’re in the vein of the retreat, and planning that process, you know, a lot of times it’s like, “Okay, I do want it to feel informative, or inspirational.” But I have to be realistic about and I say realism is one of the red flags that I’m out of experience design land, and I’m into analytics lead design, I have to be realistic about what needs to get done. And it’s like, “Yeah, okay, you do.” But if you’ve got some things that you need to be done. What are the you know, I have to pull together these three communications that are going to get sent to my internal team so that they can push them out to the people participating. Let’s say that’s one of them. Okay, so how do I design that small, seemingly inconsequential experience to be more inspirational to me, or to be more informative or exciting, or whatever adjectives I picked. And that can be stuff as simple as like, where I sit to write those communications, or the language that I use, as I’m sending it out. Or, though even you know, I’ve had clients do this, where they’re like, “We can’t possibly introduce, you know, a GIF, or a meme into our messaging.” And I’m like, “Why not? Like, if that makes it feel more lighthearted and whimsical? And that’s what you’re designing this experience to be? Give it a whirl.” Like, you know, like the worst case scenario, you’re, you’re, you’re out one message, right? So the first step for people who’ve got the adjectives is to take them and to insert them, and we use a lot of Mad Libs in the framework, insert them into these small touch points and design with the feelings first, for these small touch points. If you can’t find the adjectives, then there’s kind of a sub step to help with that as well. Because sometimes for folks even just trying to identify, truly, “how do I want this experience to feel?” Is such a foreign concept that they’re like, (Lesley: Yeah) “I can’t even get there.” And they can get there, they just need a little bit of additional support to do it.

Lesley Logan 18:33
Yeah, I mean, you have my mind thinking, because I was just, I was on a meeting with my team. And I’m like, “I don’t even like how I’m being on this meeting. Like how this meeting is going.” (Mallory: Yeah) And, and it’s like we can, if we can really identify those adjectives, I might have to have them on my wall where I can see them. (Lesley laugsh) But just trying to insert that can really change the outcome of everything because it’s true. Like if you want something to be inspirational, but not a single meeting has anything inspiring in it, it starts (Mallory: Right) to feel a little disjointed and almost like I think that’s also where even imposter syndrome can come in for people or like, misalignment and feeling like they’re not, you know, well imposter is exactly the right word. So, you know, you know, if you’re, if you’re putting on an inspirational event, but no one is having fun, and no one’s inspired. It’s not gonna, it’s not gonna come out the way it could, you know, (Mallory: Yeah) it makes you think of like, when you pour water on a plant, they’ve done studies, right? If you pour water on a plant saying negative things, the plant dies and you pour water saying positive things that lives. So that’s where my mind is going. This is really cool.

Mallory Gott 19:39
Yeah. So don’t don’t shame your plants, whether they’re meetings or picking a general like don’t shame your proverbial plants. “Support (Lesley: Yeah) and love your plants,” right? Do that. Take that appraoch. (Lesley: That’s your new shirt.) (Lesley laughs) Don’t shame your plants. That’s right. That’s right.

Lesley Logan 19:55
So okay, um, I think that that’s really I think that’s really cool. Just going to the hardware store just to starting with one thing is this cozier? Because that is that actually does really help people think the touch also helps people get a little bit more in there and can put them in there. Okay, what has been the most fun experience you’ve put together? Whatever you want to, if you can share, but yeah.

Mallory Gott 20:20
Yeah, yeah. No, I, well, there, there are some that I’ve done in my personal life that have nothing to do with the business that have been an absolute hoot. But there have been several as well that have been business related one that comes to mind is just so we went in. So on the business side of things, we went into this, this organization in Chicago, they had this big event products that they had been, it has been held for many, many years. And they just, they didn’t feel like it was doing much and it was stagnant. And they brought us in to help them redesign the experience. And one of the things that we did, so they they told us even before we got there and did the extra, the initial exercise of defining the adjectives with them, some of the folks in their leadership team told us they really wanted something transformational. And, and so what we did was to go in and do the actual meeting with this group of probably 10, 10 to 12 people. We went in a day early, and they were like, “Why are you here? Do we need to be here?” And we were like, “No, if you just show up the next morning, we got everything covered.” So we actually took their conference room and completely converted it, we designed the entire conference room, we brought in all this stuff to to like make it look and feel completely different than what they were accustomed to. And we had put up paper all in all the windows on the one side where people could see in. And it was like, you know, under construction and stuff. So they came in and they had this unbelievable reaction to like, “What is this?” You know what, and of course, we use that as a way to try to get them like, “Hey, this is the this is transformational. This is the kind of thing that you’re, you’re hoping people are going to feel when they participate.” But then the cool part was that you know, so they’re like, they’re going through the morning, they’re having a great time, we’re doing all these exercises, we’re getting a bunch of stuff down, we excuse them, we send them out to lunch to do this activity, where they’re going to different places and small groups, and they’re seeing what the experiences through this lens of experience design. During the hour that they had lunch, we flipped the room entirely. So we designed it in such a way that they could come back, like we could really fast pull everything and change the look entirely. And it was a completely different vibe. And so they came back and they were like, “What the heck?” You know, like they it was like a whole nother. And so it was also designed to show them that transformational doesn’t necessarily mean that it has to be this really stagnant transformation, or that it’s got to be this thing that, you know, if you do it with some forethought, you can have multiple transformations in a single experience and really drive home that concept and that feeling for the people who are participating. And so what was cool for me was the creativity of like designing that experience for the customers that we had, you know, brought in, but then also seeing them actually start to really see it and to start to kind of cement this concept in their minds of like, okay, we get what the feeling is. We don’t have to wait until you know, a year from now, once we’ve done this, to experience this feeling like there are things we can start to do right now. And they can be iterative, and they can be you know, there can be a number of them continuously that will allow us to know whether we’re getting, we’re achieving this feeling or we’re moving further away from it. (Lesley: Yeah) I think that was one of the coolest experiences I’ve had that you know, you could just see it all over. You could read them like a book and it was really, really fun.

Lesley Logan 21:46
Okay, so do you have a favorite website for that adjectives because you are the best ones. (Lesley and Mallory laughs) Like, I love more I, I feel like I always want to know more words, and you have used 17 words that I probably haven’t used in a sentence in a year. So like I just want … (Lesley laughs)

Mallory Gott 23:55
I’m a bit you know what, I’m a big fan. I keep it simple. I use thesaurus.com. I use it often, I use it when I write. I use it frequently. So thesaurus.com shout out to them. They’re great. (Lesley laughs) They do have a lot of popup ads on their site, but that’s because it’s a free website. So, I won’t you know, I won’t complain because they do a great service to the English speaking community of the world. So yay for thesaurus.com.

Lesley Logan 24:18
Oh my God, I love you. I’m, I can see, I can see why people have to hire you. And I also can see how like what you put together your framework can be so useful in even like, I mean, I feel like parents homeschooling their kids could have had a totally different experience last year, if they had, (Lesley laughs) “how do I make this easy, simple and fun? And what experience do I want to feel like at the end of the day?” (Lesley laughs)

Mallory Gott 24:46
Yeah, absolutely, absolutely and that’s just it is it’s when I like when a person starts to shift their paradigm to this concept that literally anything I do, you know, my my drive through or from wherever I have to go during a given day. The experience of putting together dinner for myself or for my family, grocery shopping, the meetings that I have to conduct online or at home, or in the office, if I’m back in the office, picking the contractor, designing the retreat, any of these things, they’re all experiences. And I really do have the ability to figure out how I want to feel, and then design these to maximize those feelings. Man, it’s a real game changer for people because they start to realize that they’re no longer beholden to things that they think are basically defining the experience that they have in a given day, they start to recognize that they can design those things themselves. And it, it is really, really quite a cool thing to watch people do it and see them go, “Oh my God, I can really do this kind of anywhere in any way that I want. This is cool.”

Lesley Logan 25:48
100%. I mean, like you can, like it’s just like you can like literally turn your day around. If you’re not enjoying the experience of your day. (Mallory: Yeah) You’re like, “Okay, how do I want this day to go?” You know, I’m (Mallory: Yeah) like, really… and so you made me think of … Okay, so I hate grocery shopping like hate it. Before, delivery was really a thing and accessible to get my groceries delivered. I used to tell Brad and I’m like, “Okay, this is the Amazing Race. Like we’re just going to go into Trader Joe’s, we have 22 minutes.” That’s all I’m giving Trader Joe’s. And so we’re gonna go in there (Mallory: Yeah) and we’re gonna team up, “You have a list. I have a list.” We’re just like going through and I’m like, “Okay, we’re out. We get who we…” Like with separate in the in the line to see whose line is faster. We made it a game. And I was like, “Okay, we won that.” (Lesley laughs)

Mallory Gott 26:35
Yeah. No, 100%. And I mean, and it’s like, one of the things that was such an eye opener for me. And I laugh about this every time I share it, because it sounds so ridiculous. But so I don’t hate grocery shopping. I don’t mind it. I don’t love it, but I don’t hate it. But one of the things I do absolutely dislike strongly, I shouldn’t say hate, but I don’t like it very much, weirdly, is cutting up vegetables. I really am not great at it. And I can’t stand it. And so I was like finally one day, “I was like how do I design this experience?” Like I was so angry chopping something. And I was like, “Wait a minute you ding bat. Why don’t you just buy but vegetables that are pre cut? Like, what are you doing? It makes it so much easier. And it’s it takes five seconds.” And I will tell you that since I started doing that, the quality of my food prepping experience has increased exponentially. And it was so simple, you know? And like when I tell people that sometimes they’re like, “Okay, but that sounds like you’re just like, what, who cares? Or is this just if you can you know.” And I’m like, “No, because it’s all these little experiences that you have. It’s all these little things.” And like it’s giving yourself permission to really look at what’s more important. Is it creating experiences on a moment by moment basis that allow me to feel better most of the time? And I don’t mean selfishly being like, I don’t ever do anything that I don’t care for. That’s not the point. But is it creating whatever experience you’ve got to go through, designing it so that you can maximize those feelings to the best of your ability? Or is it just saying like, I kind of have to slog through everything and hope that once in a while something crops up, that gives me those feelings, but it’s completely out of my control when and where it happens. I personally prefer the former because it allows me to go through even stuff that might not be my first choice. In a way that’s much much more you know, for me enjoyable like it’s just a lot more fun to buy pre cut vegetables than it is to angry chop them in my house.

Lesley Logan 28:24
I love that so much. I, so you me… you brought up something about cutting vegetables. And I think that is hilarious because I do think so many people are not cooking more because they also hate cutting vegetables. Like that, like I I was reading a book and this woman wants to prepare, like do the weekly prepare… like food preparation, you know. But it’s true like the amount of vegetables you have to chop to make five salads for the week is just really annoying. And she got a mandolin and that made it super fun. And so it’s like just asking yourself in any experience. (Mallory: Mm-hmm) “Is this the way I want it to go? And how do I want it to go and what different choices can I make?” And so for you it’s buying pre chopped vegetables I love buying those, Brad makes fun, maybe doesn’t make fun but I do think he looks at me like, “Why did you buy this chopped carrots? We have a five pound bag of carrots.” And I said, “Yes but I have to skin them or whatever it is and then I have to chop them (Mallory laughs) and by the time I’ve done that I don’t even want to eat them. I’ve been looking at them too long. I don’t want to do it.” (Lesley laughs) So, (Mallory: Yeah) I buy the pre-cut ones for my snacks because I just want to have carrots as a snack. I don’t want to make it an effort. (Lesley laughs)

Mallory Gott 29:31
And you know and for for for anyone those things are different, right? Some people would listen to this conversation and be like, “Oh my gosh. Really, you can’t cut vegetables like you’re pretty pretentious.” Right? But it’s like no, it’s not about the vegetable cutting per se. And I certainly if I have I been in positions where it’s like, “Yeah, that couple dollars makes a difference. I can’t, I will just do this thing of course.” But then if it was like, “Alright, I got to do it then how am I doing it?” Right? Like, I mean, I’ve gotten so ridiculous as to be like I’m gonna put on, I really love very aggressive hip hop, maybe not the (Lesley laughs) most acceptable thing. But like, I’ll put on aggressive hip hop, and I’ll put on like, like, it’s silly stuff, you know, like, an outfit that I like, or I’ll make sure like, I’ll set a timer and be like, kinda like the Trader Joe’s Amazing Race, or I’ll be like, “Alright, without cutting your fingers off, what can you do in 10 minutes?” Right? And then you’re done. And that’s going to be what it is. And like, or I’ll even, you know, kind of try to do it in such a way where it’s like, I’m going to buy the things that I know are easier to chop, right? So it’s, it’s just understanding whatever the kind of the parameters are the the ones that are not malleable, the rigid parameters that you’re dealing with, within those parameters. How can you design this experience to be as evocative of these feelings that you want to have as possible, you know, because there’s always room to play around, it doesn’t matter what the experience is, how much money you have, how much time you have, whether or not you have to do it, or you or it’s kind of optional for you. Like, there’s always room to play around with designing it in such a way that you really are creating the best experience for you based on how you want to feel.

Lesley Logan 31:01
I mean, I am obsessed with you, because it’s basically like you’re giving people the opportunity to, in the moment, even change the experience that they’re having, and also (Mallory: Yeah) really be in charge of the experience or have it in their life. I mean, we can’t control everything, but we can control the music we’re playing in the moment in our house, (Mallory: Yeah) or we can or we can, can really ask ourselves like, “Okay, I don’t like how I’m feeling. Like, how do I want to feel and what options do I have to make that feeling happen?” And I couldn’t I mean, that’s like so be it till you see it. (Lesley laughs) And that and, and that’s, I hope you all see, like when I heard she does this for a big event, it’s like, and she’s like, “No, I know you want to have a transformational event, but we have to be transformational in the meeting to have a transformational event.” And I’m like, “Yes, that is exactly how life should be lived. And I’m just so grateful for you.” Alright, Mallory, um, where can they find you, follow you, stalk you, hire you? Where where are you hanging out these days? Stalking in a good way.

Mallory Gott 31:56
Oh… I was gonna say if you, if you happen to be in the greater Las Vegas area, you can often find me in Vesta Coffee Roasters shout out to Vesta, which is downtown. (Lesley: Oh my God) But …

Lesley Logan 32:04
Obsessed with Vesta. Obsessed. We brew there, I actually okay, this is a just a moment on Vesta. When we’re running out low on coffee beans, I literally go on to the app to order two amazing lattes and a bag of coffee beans. And … (Lesley laughs)

Mallory Gott 32:20
There it is, there it is, if you got to go in and pick up the beans, you might as well get a latte to go for you (Lesley: Yeah) and you and Boo. But assuming many people may be listening to this who are not in the Greater Las Vegas area, there are a few ways to get a hold of me. So number one, please feel free to visit our website, gaexperiences.com. That’s got a whole litany of information on it about different groups who worked with the framework, how you can get access to the course that I teach about the framework, all kinds of good stuff. You can also check me out on LinkedIn, my LinkedIn profiles a good way to get a hold of me directly if you’re interested in more information, or you’d like me to come out and hang out with you, help you redesign your dating experience, your home renovation. (Lesley laughs) I don’t typically do spouse redesigns that’s above my paygrade. (Lesley laughs) But a lot of other things, you know, working with teams or large organizations, that’s a great way to get me relatively quickly. So, I would say those are probably the two quickest ways to get a hold of either me or me through a couple of folks at the company who keep tabs on our our website communication tools.

Lesley Logan 33:25
Love that. Okay. Um, so BE IT action items like what can people do to prioritize themselves, prioritize changing their experience? What do you got for us?

Mallory Gott 33:36
Yeah, so one of the things that I often suggest I mentioned, we use Mad Libs, is to use kind of a daily Mad Lib. So this is an exercise we have people do well, it’s part of an exercise we have people do early on when they’re learning the framework. And that is to rather than designing a large scale experience, pick the three adjectives you’d like to experience on a given day or morning or hour, whatever period of time is really pretty incremental for you. And then we have them put down their to-do list. So the things that you have to do in a given day. Name a couple of those, they can be as simple as brush your teeth or as complex as you know, buy a home or whatever you got on the docket. And then we have them go through this Mad Lib where they invert whatever their to-do list and we turn it into a get to-do and so we say in order to feel, I don’t know, you know, bubbly while I am doing the laundry, I can X, Y and Z, right? And we have people start to list out a couple things that they can do small, big in between doesn’t matter to start shifting their paradigm around those daily get to-do experiences that we have that we can design. So if you do nothing else, I would say give that a whirl. It’s a great, great place to start and it’s a nice easy way to kind of dip your toes in the water of feelings led experience design, without having to completely overhaul every single facet of your life from the jump.

Lesley Logan 34:59
Ah, that’s so fun. I love that. Okay, well, I’m going to do that after this. When I hang up, I’m gonna be like, “Okay, (Mallory: Yeah …) how do we change this list of things to do today to get us to (Mallory: Yeah) December 12. (Lesley laughs)

Mallory Gott 35:10
Yeah. Yeah. That’s right. That’s absolutely right.

Lesley Logan 35:13
Ah, Mallory. I can’t wait. Well, we’ll have to do Vesta. I actually go every Saturday after I worked out with one of our mutual friends. (Lesley laughs) (Mallory: Mm-hmm) So we go every Saturday morning and I I just love that place so much. It’s actually why we moved that coffee shop that’s why we move to Las Vegas. So yeah.

Mallory Gott 35:31
It’s a winner, a real winner. Yeah, I (Lesley: Yeah) agree. I yeah, it’s got a special place in my heart. I could be sponsored by Vesta on many days. I think if they did sponsorships, I feel like I could really throw my hat in the ring…

Lesley Logan 35:42
We’ll, you know what. (Mallory: Qualifying for one) We’ll have to send this episode to them because that’s a couple of us would like a sponsorship and they do, their neighbors of mine. They actually live down the street. So, I probably (Lesley laughs) just make that happen. (Mallory: Knock on the door. Hey, Jerad. Hi, Hiee) We could really, help… you can actually change this experience a little bit with us (Lesley laughs) (Mallory: Mm-hmm) Ah Mallory, you are lovely. Enjoy your trip that you’re on. And thank you for (Mallory: Thank you) taking your time to really share this with our listeners, because I really think it’s life changing. And I’m more, I’m so inspired from where I was 45 minutes ago. So thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. And I will hopefully see you in Vegas soon.

Mallory Gott 36:23
Yay. Thank you so much. Have a great day.

Lesley Logan 36:26
You too, everyone. Until next time, Be It Till You See It.

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Lesley Logan
That’s all I’ve got for this episode of the Be It Till You See It podcast! One thing that would help both myself and future listeners is for you to rate this show and leave a review. And, follow or subscribe for free wherever you listen to podcasts. Also, make sure to introduce yourself over at the @be_it_pod on Instagram! I would love to know more about you. Share this episode with whoever you think needs to hear it. Help us help others to BE IT TILL YOU SEE IT. Have an awesome day!

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Lesley Logan
‘Be It Till You See It’ is a production of ‘As The Crows Fly Media’.

Brad Crowell
It’s written, produced, filmed and recorded by your host, Lesley Logan and me, Brad Crowell. Our Associate Producer is Amanda Frattarelli.

Lesley Logan
Kevin Perez at Disenyo handles all of our audio editing.

Brad Crowell
Our theme music is by Ali at APEX Production Music. And our branding by designer and artist, Gianfranco Cioffi.

Lesley Logan
Special thanks to our designer Jaira Mandal for creating all of our visuals (which you can’t see because this is a podcast) and our digital producer, Jay Pedroso for editing all video each week so you can.

Brad Crowell
And to Angelina Herico for transcribing each of our episodes so you can find them on our website. And, finally to Meridith Crowell for keeping us all on point and on time.