Results May Vary Podcast

Hello Results May Vary listeners, it’s Tracy! I’m excited to share this very special episode featuring a panel conversation on the topic of Psychedelic Medicine and Design. I recently co-hosted this live event at the Stanford University Hasso Plattner Institute of Design aka the dschool, with my teaching colleagues Elysa Fenenboch and Dr. Gianni Glick. 

We set out to explore the question, what IS the role of design as we transition psychedelic medicine from the research lab to medical clinics and journey spaces? How might they be used for the most good to individuals, cultures, and ecological ecosystems, including the plants and molecules themselves. 

Let me introduce our guests in order of how you’ll hear them in the recording:

Ismail Ali is the Director of Policy and Advocacy for MAPS, the Multidisciplinary Association of Psychedelic Studies 

Dr. Allison Feduccia is a neuropharmacologist, psychedelic researcher and educator

Ayize Jama-Everet is an author, professor, producer, and guerilla theologian

Dr. Kyra Bobinet, who you may know from being a guest on this show twice, is also known as Me’me and is an enrolled member of the Leech Lake Band of Ojibwe, and the founder and CEO of health tech company FreshTri

The pandemic has taken its toll on many people's romantic relationships. How can passion thrive as the world starts to rebuild? Katie Love is a life designer and expert on the human heart. The RMV chat to her about how to build a co-creative relationship, how to re-spark passion and when to decide if a relationship is coming to an end.

The pandemic is forcing us to rethink how we work but how can you separate the home and the office if they're both the same place? Chris and Katia chat with life designer Ashley Jablow about how to overcome a toxic culture of excessive work. They also talk about the power of intuition and what true growth feels like.

Life's too short to not love what you do but how should you approach that dream job? Mollie Amkraut Mueller founded the career-coaching company Crew to answer just that. Tracy and Katia chat to Mollie about incorporating life design into the job hunt and ask how to stay motivated in a bad job.

Gabrielle recently joined the Learning Team at Airbnb to create and deliver innovative learning experiences that help foster connection, unlock creativity and inspire action. Katia and Chris talk with Gabrielle about the fundamentals of life design, the potential for prototyping and practical steps everyone can take to unlock their full potential.

In early 2017 Lee Kim forgot her friend Tracy's birthday. What would be a moment of fleeting regret for many of us, instead sparked a creative journey for Lee and @wearabletracy was born. Every day Lee would wear a different birthday crown made from multi-coloured pipe cleaners. On the show, Lee Kim talks about how this simple act of play has radically transformed her life.

Wellness expert Alyssa Chang talks to Chris and Tracy about the power of neuroscience. Based in sunny Honolulu, Alyssa's journey into brain-based coaching stems from a past career as a collegiate volleyball player. In the first episode of Season 3 of Results May Vary, Alyssa guides us through practical exercises that help improve the connection between our brain and body. Why not try at home too!

Dare to dream beyond the pandemic as Chris, Katia and Tracy guide you through life design in the age of Covid-19. In this bonus episode of the podcast, the team talk about how the vaccine offers a glimmer of light from fatigue and exhaustion. Also, how life can get harder when you get closer to the finish line and why it's important to keep moving forward.

Today we are excited to wrap up our Results May Vary podcast relaunch with the sixth and final episode of Season 2! To celebrate, we’re switching up the format a bit by inviting our talented producer, Jenny Luna, to ask us the life design questions that came up for her while editing our material as a newbie to this work. Since we recorded all of the episodes before we launched again, we found it was a great hack for us to get feedback about what might resonate best for you no matter how familiar you are, or aren’t, with the design process. 

"Design thinking is fundamentally for each person to remember that they always have choices and they can choose how they want to design their options." –Katia

"When I think of design, I think of it as a creative problem-solving process. It's something that you do when you want to come up with new solutions to challenges that you have, whether that's business challenges or challenges in your day to day life." –Tracy

"Constraint is the perfect companion because the constraint focuses on the opportunity or the problem or where the creativity needs to shine, it gives us a focal point." –Chris

In the future, we’ll be opening up this Ask Us Anything format to include you! What’s on your mind about design, creativity, imagination, and experimenting in your life? What was inspiring? What’s still confusing? What’s altered your views? What have you tried? What worked? And more importantly, what didn’t work out so well and what did you do next? 

We’re so grateful to each and every one of you who took the time to listen to the show, shared it with friends, sent us messages of encouragement, commented in our FB group, and were brave enough to try a few new life designs of your own. Whether you found us again after our too-long hiatus or are tuning in for the first time, it’s been an absolute delight to reconnect and rebuild our community together. We’ve got even bigger dreams for next season, with new guests, new perspectives, and especially new ways to connect and experiment and play together! 

Have a wonderful rest of the holidays, wherever you are in the world! As challenging, chaotic, and confusing as 2020 was for so many of us, 2021 is our opportunity to design our world, and our own individual lives, to better reflect our dreams, values, and shared human potential. After all, as we say on the show, we are all born creators, and every day is a whole new chance to create.

Today we are delighted to welcome artist, designer, and educator Purin Phanichiphant. With his roots in Northern Thailand, where he spent part of his life as a Buddhist monk, combined with his background in designing innovative products in Silicon Valley, Purin’s work reminds us to take a pause, play, touch, and take joy in simplicity.

Whether it’s rethinking cultural rituals or using art to examine the parallels between the universe and the brain, Purin’s interactive objects and installations engage people in co-creation.

Let’s listen in as Purin shares his perspective on the infinite potential of creativity, and how you can turn mindless routines into more mindful rituals, especially now when it’s harder to engage in the shared societal rituals we’ve always relied on.

Show Notes:

Purin Phanichphant, Artist & Designer

Purin Phanichphant, Lecturer in Design at UC Berkeley

Purin’s Dada Meditations on Spotify

Minnesota Street Project, Art Gallery and Studio Space

IDEO, Global Design Firm

Purin’s art piece referenced in the show: Astro, Neuro, Art Exhibit in St. Ignatius Church, San Francisco

Elena Brower, meditation practitioner