Driving Eureka! Newsletter #23
Your Innovation Podcast. This is the 23rd episode of the Driving Eureka! Podcast. Segment 1: Fail Fearlessly; Segment 2: The Wonder of Failure; Segment 3: Brain Brew Whisk(e)y Academy.
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Show Notes
[00:00:01]
The Driving Eureka! Podcast
[00:00:56]
Failing Fearlessly
[00:15:03]
Add to Doug’s Commencement Speech – Reach Him at Doug@doughall.com
[00:15:43]
The Driving Eureka! Book Segment
[00:16:08]
Fear of the First Step to Innovate
[00:16:20]
One Small Step to Change Your Life
[00:17:40]
Innovation Breaks Down Innovation into Small, Easily Digestible Steps that Mitigate Fear
[00:20:46]
Deming Gave a Problem Solving Philosophy
[00:25:52]
Brain Brew Whisk(e)y Academy
[00:26:06]
The Wonder of Failure
[00:26:21]
American Distilling Conference
[00:27:24]
I-Still
[00:29:10]
Stories of Epic Failures
[00:31:48]
Admiral Perry’s Advice
[00:34:33]
If You Can’t Fail – You Have Problems
[00:35:15]
Craft Cocktail Recipe – Vermont Toddy
[00:36:37]
Step 1
[00:36:43]
Step 2
[00:36:47]
Step 3
[00:36:50]
Step 4
Transcript
Tripp: [00:00:01] Welcome to the Driving Eureka! podcast where we share ideas and advice for helping you find filter and. Fast Track Big Ideas. Hi I’m Tripp Babbitt advisor to global organizations on the Deming philosophy and host of the Deming Institute podcast.
Doug: [00:00:23] And I’m Doug Hall inventor speaker teacher and whiskey maker. I’m also the founder of the Eureka ranch and author of the driving Eureka book this is episode number twenty three of the driving Eureka podcasts and this episode we’re going to talk about fear failing fearlessly. So Doug you’ve written this newsletter. It’s it’s quite a bit different than what we’ve seen in the past.
Tripp: [00:00:54] What what do you doing
Doug: [00:00:56] Okay I figured it was a labor saving device. Okay I’ve got to do this commencement address for a university. I’m speaking to the graduate school is doing a commencement. They’ve asked me to do it and I had spoken at the university before to the undergraduates and I’m doing the graduate students and I’m stressing out because they’re like well we’ve got to see what your talk is and all this I’m like Oh my God.
Doug: [00:01:20] I thought wait a minute I got an idea. I’ll write it up a first draft and then I’ll like do it in the podcast and get Tripp’s help with it and get listeners help with it.
Doug: [00:01:33] So to improve it it’s kind of like doing what we talk you know we talk about fail fast fail cheap cycles of learning this is it’s like a labor saving device you know what would you say if you were standing in front of a bunch of people that were getting their doctorate and their masters that you know which you know their interest in you is somewhere around none you know they want the certificate in the party afterwards right. And you’re trying to say something in a short period of time is meaningful. And so when I did the last time I got it was it was pretty stressful. And you say you’re trying to say something. I figured hey what a great way to practice.
Tripp: [00:02:13] Okay. All right well look let’s give it a shot.
Doug: [00:02:16] Okay. So I’m going to go through it and I’m going to you know I’ll stop a couple of times and we’ll talk about it and I’ve got my pen here all scribbled down my notes on our thoughts that we’ve got and we’ll go from there. OK OK. Here we go. OK so imagine the scene you know pompous overdone you know wearing those funky hats and you know gowns and all that stuff and you know the president and the chancellor of all of our rah pontificating on all the stuff and and and then we say we have this guy here who’s going to who kind of a whiskey maker an inventor who’s gonna talk and and I say thank you to God motherhood and all of the distinguished food who’s on the stage you know because that’s the kind of stuff he’s supposed to say right. And I say you know that to his house that’s right.
Doug: [00:03:01] Family and friends before us is a very special group of people to be awarded an advanced degree requires that the candidate formally or informally make an original contribution to the world’s knowledge. These amazing people before you are explorers and adventurers they have demonstrated the courage to push the boundaries of human knowledge. Let us recognize that courage here. Thank you. Now I’d like to thank the university for giving me the opportunity for a do over. You see I spoke at the 2008 commencement and there I urged graduates to declare independence to declare their independence from baby boomer conformity. I urge them to think for themselves and to not sell out their values as many from my 60s generation have done OK. Tripp what you think. What do you think what you think the opening.
Tripp: [00:03:59] You know it’s funny I wrote down a couple of things within the introduction you know and I’m thinking OK if I’m the audience. First of all I want to especially set up that you said they’re looking forward to the afterparty. They want to be entertained and they want something different than what’s going to be expected and everything that I’ve learned about narrative is kind of in a format of. And but and therefore so you kind of end a little bit at the beginning. But you know it’s going to be different than than 2008. Therefore and that’s now what I’m expecting. That’s that would be my comment at this point.
Doug: [00:04:41] Ok so you say you’re waiting for something profound.
Tripp: [00:04:43] Yes. Now I’m leading you know OK give me give me.
Doug: [00:04:46] Man oh man okay. It’s okay here we go. Okay. Over the past few months I’ve reflected on that speech and concluded that I made a mistake. Today I corrected the drum roll now. I guess this.
Doug: [00:05:05] Follow graduates instead of simply encouraging you to think for yourself. I challenge you I challenge you to go forth and fail fearlessly. Yes I said fail fearlessly is only by learning to love failure that you can achieve great things. It’s as basic as the scientific method that you embraced on your journey to this day. It’s as fundamental as Dr. Deming theory of knowledge plan to study act. It is how we learn everything. It’s how we learn to ride a bike. We try we fail we learn. We try again. It’s how we learn to read to write and to invent amazing solutions to the challenges the world faces we think.
Tripp: [00:05:49] Yeah. No. Yes. That follows up. It’s funny. I’m preparing actually for an interview with somebody that that does kind of neuro linguistic programming stuff and when the things they talk about is fear and in that they say that to mitigate fear you have to have safety belonging and and doing something really that matters or mattering in the universe. And so I’m kind of as you’re reading through this I’m kind of checking the boxes in my head. Ah you. How do I get safety yet fail fearlessly. That’s the question that’s coming up in my head at least right now.
Doug: [00:06:31] Ok well let’s keep going. OK. Twenty nineteen graduates you have been given a special gift as a result of your persistence grit and importantly the support of your family friends and the university community now is not the time not the time to become academically retired in place now is not the time to become prudent proper and puckered I think of this a laugh there at that point somewhere.
Doug: [00:07:00] Hopefully hopefully now is the time to become an expert at failing fearlessly. Now is the time to use your degree as your license to fail. I thought that was kind of good. What do you think. License to fail know the degree.
Tripp: [00:07:17] Yeah. That’s the way maybe we should look at it. I think a lot of people as you have pointed out look at look to it as a more of a safety net though as opposed as opposed to a license to fail.
Doug: [00:07:32] Oh yeah I can see which say. I’m thinking that might be the line they remember. I now have a license to fail.
Doug: [00:07:39] I mean I could see my dad hearing the talk and saying to me bless him he’s passed but he would say well I guess you have a license to fail now you have a degree that allows you to do that. I mean I’m at a service I can see him thinking that way.
Doug: [00:07:54] In his warped sense of humor use your success that we acknowledge today as a platform for teaching the naysayers the insecure and the mentally the mental scaredy cat of this world about how failure is the foundation for greatness. To paraphrase Dr. Deming how could they know how could they know how could they know the value of failing if they’ve never traveled travelled the journey that you my friends have crashed travelled in your journey to this day on campus you live in a community committed to learning as you go forth to the real world that will not always be the case to help you I offer you three simple lessons I’ve learned. Number one fail fast fail cheap. Use your creative abilities to find ways to do rapid and cost effective experimentation. To think big. Focus your efforts on projects that are bold and have the potential to make a meaningful difference in the world. And number three. Embrace the crazy don’t give Pat they don’t give patents to people who are prudent. If your idea is an obviously leap by those with skill in the art your patent application will is rejected.
Doug: [00:09:07] They only give patents to the crazy ones. Author Stephen King who met a man who knows a little bit about fear feels that within all of us is healthy craziness. Stephen wrote I think that we’re all in fact mentally ill those those of us outside the asylums only heightened a little better and maybe not all that much better after a. So you know it’s OK. I’ll stop there. What do you think.
Tripp: [00:09:37] Ok so now you’re kind of giving the method to be able to apply these things. I definitely think you know it’s going to be hard difficult in a commencement speech speech to be able to give them all the tools but you’ve roused the curiosity. I think at this point okay. Where did I have this and maybe they’ve already had some of this and their graduate studies. I don’t know the school. So yeah.
Doug: [00:10:04] Okay. So then I might close. So so you know I’m not preaching without practicing my team set out to invent a way to accelerate the aging of whiskey in one crazy week. We failed 72 times in seven days. We made horrible horrible whiskey and with each failure we got smarter and smarter. Then one morning we connected the dots experiment 13 experiment 30 and 70 and we had trapped what we had discovered is a way to transform the space time continuum for whiskey aging double gold medals and market success followed. And it was all because of a courage to fail fearlessly without failure.
Doug: [00:10:49] There will be no learning as Ben Franklin wrote up sluggard and waste not life in the grave.
[00:10:54] We’ll be sleeping enough deep inside all of us as a magical curiosity a curiosity that fuels our courage to fail. Learn and fail again in closing. In recognition of your courage and in the memory of my family’s graduates of this great university my grandmother mother father brother sister son nephew and niece Jill who graduates tomorrow I drink a toast with our brain through whiskey. I drink to the College of our hearts always and I will raise a glass. Probably the only one who’s ever drank at a commencement. Well maybe maybe not. That’s flask. Oh yeah.
Tripp: [00:11:35] Yeah I think we were drinking actually at my commencement. But anyway one thing one thing I was going to just say that that really stands out from my perspective that I’d like to see added to this is in here where you’re talking about crazed week we failed 72 times in seven days. We made horrible horrible whiskey and I wrote down immediately after you said that just from our previous conversations on purpose that you do you push the limits that you wasn’t by accident you were actually pushing the limits not there. Awesome.
Doug: [00:12:12] Awesome. Yeah.
Tripp: [00:12:13] That though is just when you said said that that just popped in my head immediately just from our previous conversation. So. But I know I like it. It has a very good ABT format. It’s got something that’s got practical application of how you’ve done it now. I like the I don’t know if this is just a skeleton at this point or you know this read into it.
Doug: [00:12:37] That’s it.
Tripp: [00:12:38] And yeah everybody can go drinking and so this is almost like the Gettysburg Address.
Doug: [00:12:44] Well they have to be sure that these things because you got the people to do it go a little longer I think a graduate school because a smaller but when you’re doing the universities with thousands of graduates they really I mean it’s it’s like precision you have to have to be short. And I’ve been very blessed.
Doug: [00:12:57] This university is giving me an honorary doctorate I’ve gotten a couple of those so I’m not worthy of any of these things but the. But I guess I must entertain them enough the last time. But the the you know it is it’s an interesting thing doing a commencement and a good friend. I asked him advice he says.
Doug: [00:13:17] Say what you would want your kids to hear if they were graduating and. And so last time it was all about declaration of independence from baby boomer conformity. Don’t do it. I mean this was ten years ago. Don’t do what your parents do. Do your own thing you know be yourself you know. Don’t be like our generation who started out in the 60s caring about the environment and now it’s a political hot potato. You know how the frig did that happen man. You know. And you know it’s it’s just it’s just you know generations. Some people say that’s always going to happen. But but the human condition is a hope that the idealism of youth will not totally be lost. You know the people do it.
Doug: [00:14:01] And I do feel like that just that independence it was a reaction I was talking a reaction against what was going on as opposed to what to do.
Doug: [00:14:12] And you know listeners to this podcast readers of my books this concept you know I write about how to create ideas and how to face fear. I mean that’s it encouraging creativity. That’s all I know. That’s all I write about seven books on creativity courage you know whether it’s the North Pole or whatever it is. There’s only two subjects that I know and and so we return to it a lot. And I don’t know there’s something about this concept.
Doug: [00:14:38] You know what you’re hoping for. Former Governor Kenneth Curtis spoke at my graduation a long time a long long time ago and I have no idea what he talked about. I’ve tried to look it up on the Internet and I never could find much of anything on it. You know you hope as a commencement speaker that you reach somebody somewhere so anybody out there who’s got a thought please send it to me.
Doug: [00:15:03] You can email me at Doug Hall at Doug Hall dot com. Doug Hall at Doug Hall dot com just send me any advice and suggestions they are all welcome. Cause these are stressful when you do these because they’re expecting you to do something of significance.
Tripp: [00:15:19] So now a very good day I think people will be entertained and it’s like like you said a lot of these commencement speeches can go go on and on and on and I think this gets to the point very quickly.
Tripp: [00:15:43] It’s time now for the Driving Eureka book segment with author and inventor Doug Hall Well let’s move to our driving you Rica book segment and we continue on this theme small steps to build courage using PDSA.
Doug: [00:16:08] Yeah. So you know we want to do big ideas but it’s that first step. That’s the hard step. And people tend to look at the mountain go Oh my God how am I gonna do this.
Doug: [00:16:20] Well you know you have taken a step at a time and and I had the good fortune I was at Canyon Ranch and Robert Mauer author of the book one small step can change your life. The Kaizen way was was a guest of Canyon Ranch. I got to hear him talk I and I got his book and he’s about the cycles and he’s he writes all changes even positive ones are scary attempts to reach goals through radical or revolutionary means often fail because they hate and fear.
Doug: [00:16:53] But the small steps of kaizen disarm the brain’s fear response stimulating rational thought and I in the book excerpt that’s in the newsletter I talked about you know plan to study act these cycles of learning through these are confidence encourage grow and it’s not about throwing stuff against the wall it is about you know discipline steps of learning and so whether it’s the way we make the whiskey whether it’s a way we approach projects you know.
Doug: [00:17:19] Yeah the first 50 times it’s probably going to mess up probably a hundred times. But if the mission is worthy and you’re disciplined about it and you study and you look back and look at them that’s how you do it. The problem is getting people to do the first one because they want to sit there and figure the whole thing out before they even begin. Well that’s not going to happen. Not going to happen.
Tripp: [00:17:40] I think you know and that’s one of the things that I learned from going to the innovation engineering classes is I didn’t have a method I didn’t have a way to break it down as I would other things. So you know if I was consulting with someone on their organizational structure I knew how to break that down. I knew what steps to take. You know one by one in small chunks to be able to kind of move them through to what a new structure might do for them an actual test it. I mean you know being able to test that structure I didn’t have a method. I think people sometimes you know they’re they’re looking for the well the one thing as you’ve mentioned before as far as the big idea. Hopefully that that will you know drive it through.
Tripp: [00:18:28] But it’s really what you’ve done in innovation engineering is break it in to into smaller steps for people to be able to grasp the concepts of really innovation.
Doug: [00:18:40] Yeah. For some people this is natural they can they can see those steps and they can do it. But for most people it’s not. And that’s where the classes and the lessons whether it’s the online class or live and the software that makes it methodical makes it almost seems like contradiction terms innovation logical.
Doug: [00:19:02] Oh yeah. Discovery is. I mean it’s the scientific method folks. I mean this is not there’s no great discovery. You know this is the fundamental. This is how science happens.
Doug: [00:19:12] This is how new things are discovered and whether you’re discovering a cure for cancer or you’re working to discover a cure for you know your business challenge or your non-profit challenge or your life challenge. There’s a methodical approach. And people have just not been shown that I spent the weekend with you with Kevin Cahill the grandson of Dr. Deming and the executive director of the Deming Institute which if you go to Deming dawg you can learn a lot more about it.
Doug: [00:19:42] And we had some incredible conversations about about Dr. Deming and his teaching and he was showing me they’ve got this new online class that they’re in the process developing and so I get to see one of the first prototypes. And and I said to him I said I said Kevin you know you know what you’ve got here.
Doug: [00:20:03] But what Deming really was doing was teaching us problem solving and we stopped for a second because I and I realized what that said and I said you know this we tend to think of this plan to study act as this other thing but what it really is it’s how to solve the problems of life. That’s it. That’s what it is. It’s the simplest most effective problem solving system on earth. And whether it’s the way we teach it at the Institute which is the same and we are beholden to them for all of their their help. That’s what it’s about. And but we don’t have that system and we’re not taught that in school we’re not taught that unless you go to a school where they teach innovation engineering of course she plug you know.
Tripp: [00:20:46] So. So as I as I’m listening to you talk about you know from a problem solving standpoint it takes me back to. And we may be touched upon this since in an earlier episode but it takes me back to Frederick Taylor and his method force problem solving and really what was references Taylor ism as being the method that was used. But Taylor ism has now been basically just modified to neo Taylor ism so. So we’re we’re still not using the problem solving of PD essay of Dr. Deming thinking it’s still stuck in something from really the early nineteen hundreds. Any thoughts about that.
Doug: [00:21:29] Yeah I mean we’ve gone from a world of command and control to empowering workers to back to command and control again and and and the worker you know we quote We hire these people because of their creativity. We see you creativity problem solving I want entrepreneurial people. And then we ask them to just do what we tell them to do. You know it’s like why do you bother me. Why do you bother. I mean I was just going through that with brain we’ve got a few investors that we’ve got and and and I reach out to them every single week. I give them things I need help on and I was talking to one of the best assistants Doug I’ve got a bunch of investments I have none like you. You just are endless in asking for my help.
Doug: [00:22:15] They say and frankly I can’t. I don’t know how you do it because I can’t keep up you. I mean it’s only once a week you ask me for help but I can’t keep up when I feel really bad.
Doug: [00:22:22] And he says you know none of the other investments that I have do they ask me for help. None. He said Why do you do it. I said well I I. Yes your investment was helpful but the reason I selected you because I was fortunate I could turn down other people was because I thought you were a smart person and I wanted your help. So why would I recruit you because you can help me and then not listen to you that would appear to be stupid. And it appears that most managers are stupid. They hire smart people who think differently and then they try to get them to think like themselves. Well what the f. You know I mean come on people it’s crazy it’s crazy.
Tripp: [00:23:06] I think that’s the the burden of consulting in general. You find out a lot of times for when people hire you and they just want you to affirm what they’re doing as opposed to actually improving what they’re doing you they want reinforcement. You know they went they went Oh yeah look how great you are.
Tripp: [00:23:24] You know type of thing. I said if you wanted me to do that we could have made this a very short conversation at the very beginning and you know well.
Doug: [00:23:32] I have an executive vice president at one of the biggest banks in the world. He said he said he says Doug Hall is a royal pain. I mean he is just absolutely obnoxious. The problem is is he’s right. And he tells the truth and I’m like well that’s good. I guess I didn’t mean to be obnoxious but. But you know I’ve.
Doug: [00:24:00] That’s how I’ve been in this business for 40 years. You tell the truth politely politely. That’s the key. Politely but you know you you educate and you you speak the truth because the minute you stopped speaking the truth you’re your value is lost and your soul is gone.
Tripp: [00:24:18] That’s true.
Doug: [00:24:19] That’s the only reason I’m still in it. Many most of the people who were doing innovation whether it’s innovation education or inventing work for clients are just gone. They’re just gone. I mean it’s. It is. I mean another one bites the dust. Another friend just retired he says it’s beyond me now and I’m like oh man and you guys are killing me man. Stay in the game.
Doug: [00:24:42] But they do they they they just give up because part of it is is they lost their integrity at some point along the way. And so now they it’s just just horrible. But when you’re doing meaningful stuff in meaningful ways and and in you there are clients out there who really want help. What we’ll talk about it next week I’m going to talk about this the difference between bartenders and mixologists OK. Well let’s speak to this. We’ll talk about that next week. But there is a difference in how you approach this and that’s how I’m still having more fun. Forty years later I’m still having fun with it which is amazing. Most people are burnt out longer go.
Tripp: [00:25:23] Or searching for new ways to try and tell the truth. You know that that resonates.
Doug: [00:25:30] I don’t know. I don’t know that that’s the case. I think they give up. I’d like to think that they did but most of them just give up. But my generation at least
Tripp: [00:25:42] This is the Brain Brew Whisk(e)y Academy podcasts where we will take you behind the scenes so you can see what it takes to build a whiskey distillery business.
Tripp: [00:25:52] The Eureka ranch team led by Doug Hall are creating a craft whiskey company patented technology like has never been done before.
Tripp: [00:26:06] Ok well let’s move to our Brain Brew Whisk(e)y Academy. The wonder of failure.
Tripp: [00:26:13] So you’ve attended a American Distilling Institute conference in Denver Tell me about that experience.
Doug: [00:26:21] Oh fine. About 2000 people about 90 percent of which are not in the spirits business or whiskey business. They’re trying to decide if they want to get into it. So a lot of newbies that are there but there were a few people who had done it and I got to spend some time maybe having a wee dram with some of those folks distilling conference I’m sure and maybe a little bit.
Doug: [00:26:47] And it was interesting because you got the newbies who were sitting there nervous scribbling down every single piece you know trying to get every little detail. So the case are going to miss something and not realizing hey it’s not you know you just got to get in and you know just keep swimming as the movie says hey you got to get into the game you know you sitting on the sidelines you can’t figure out what it’s like to get into it.
Doug: [00:27:17] And and that’s frankly I’ll tell you one of the challenges that I’m going to make a plug I’m going to make a big plug here for somebody.
Doug: [00:27:24] One of the great challenges people have is you know brewers have been able to do you know homebrew and learn their way to get ready to get going. And distillers have had a very hard time with that because to really do distilling I mean unless you do in moon shining and the time it takes to age et cetera et cetera I mean it’s just you mean you have to get in before you learn much. There’s a company called I-still. And anybody listening to it I’m going to give you my strongest strongest recommendation and that includes here in the U.S.. Also one of the most respected whiskey makers in Scotland a top top notch person from the very top companies told me the only still to buy is an ice still it’s a computer controlled system.
Doug: [00:28:12] But what’s most impressive is they have an I-still mini that’s only like four leaders or something like that a little tiny thing that actually fits in a roller board that you can check kind of on a plane like or it’s a little tiny thing.
Doug: [00:28:29] And so you can do. You can do your batches you can find your cut points and you can work with it. But I still is the only way to go only way and they have amazing courses that you can take if you’re thinking of getting into the spirits business to make your gin and vodka. I would use an ice still to make whiskey work with brain. Will help you with the whiskey part but to to get there going that way because that’s where you’re gonna really do something amazing.
Tripp: [00:28:57] Okay. So you. But you didn’t buy you didn’t have one of these.
Tripp: [00:29:01] Yes I do. Oh you do. So yes I I. And so I’m still grasping the concept of it that I still does things in smaller batches.
Doug: [00:29:10] It does very small fast runs. OK. So that means you can run a lot. You know we talk about fail fast fail cheap. It’s a system fulfill fast fail cheap like we can make whiskey in our time machines in in 40 minutes. So too can you make batches of distilling batches and run some experiments much faster with this. So if they’re awesome. They’re absolutely awesome owners incredible rep team is it’s just awesome. And it’s the only way to go. I still I still. OK. Yeah. So when I was at the conference I got to talk to a bunch of these people and you know a couple of grams as you go along you start talking about failures and things that didn’t work. And you know one of these distillers is telling me the story about how he had a he kind of messed up some stuff he was doing and he had a small fire in the distillery her cheese disaster disaster the bite about a small explosion just a small one.
Doug: [00:30:11] But they cleaned it up and he discovers like he’s three to five bottles just a very tiny amount of liquid was in one of the vessels there. And he tastes in comedy and that’s pretty good.
Doug: [00:30:26] So a bottle shop he submits it direct competition and wins Stop.
Tripp: [00:30:32] Oh no. Really.
Doug: [00:30:34] Mm hmm. Awkward. I haven’t thought of that just the three I said.
Tripp: [00:30:42] Yeah. How do you recreate that.
Doug: [00:30:44] So that is like how do I make it a game without you. That’s fine. But the thing is is that he was laughing about it you know and other people started telling stories of epic failures Ed and there were some newbies around looking at are as you know they are worried about that they’re gonna mess up and we’re just talking about our screw ups all the time. And and and it’s I don’t know if if you’re not comfortable with failing don’t bother to start a distillery just don’t start it don’t tell me that you know everything because you’re an executive or buy food for what.
Doug: [00:31:24] Just get over yourself. This is a live and dynamic process. OK when you eat when you’re making whiskey. Consumers are fickle. You have a 95 percent failure rate. Everything fails. That’s not the question. It will all fail. The question is do you pivot. Do you change. Do you learn from that. Do you make it right. And and it’s interesting because I I was thinking of Paul Shirky when I went to the North Pole.
Doug: [00:31:48] He’s one of the greatest. He spent more nights sleeping below zero than anybody else. They say I don’t know how you figure out rule I got but. So he’s gone to the pole a whole bunch of times by dog Lipski the Admiral Perry way. And I asked him I said Why do you go to the North Pole. This is as we’re getting ready for the trip but he says this is because it feels so good when you stop now.
Doug: [00:32:09] As I’m getting ready to go to the Pole with him I’m thinking what can a nut case. But he was right. You know and it’s the same with the distillery. You go through the ups the downs the failures and but you survive. You survive. Sometimes you make the Poles sometimes you don’t. But whether you make it or not you sit down and man it’s like Damn it. You know I pushed myself. I did it.
Doug: [00:32:38] I did something I did something I put myself out there versus those people that sit on the couch and go whose looks pretty tough to me you know not gonna do anything. Get up. Get out. Get going.
Tripp: [00:32:54] One of the things that I have curious just from your experience as you talk about whiskey and you talk about going to the North Pole type of thing are businesses. I mean they all should be failing right. I mean isn’t that. Or do you see different scales associated a bank versus a whiskey company. In other words that that you should be failing more because of the nature of the business.
Doug: [00:33:19] No it’s not humans humans life. Everybody everybody. If perfection is highly overrated you need it.
Doug: [00:33:30] If it’s obvious and you can get it then you haven’t done anything worth doing stretch yourself push the edges push the edges you know you know whenever anybody says they’re okay with fear I know they’re not you know I mean it’s just how it happens it’s how learning happens Demi said theory of knowledge it’s how it happens failure is part of the system if if when you when people say oh you know we’re not really good with was failure here well and then you’re stupid and you’re gonna die because you know the plants as the seeds are spread on on the air a whole lot of them hit pavement then work hard to grow on pavement but some make it and the natural selection and the evolution of the genes happens that’s just how it happens.
Doug: [00:34:33] I mean it’s just the way it is. And I have zero sympathy for people so I think I can’t fail what if I say well and then you know it’s like one day I said to myself feel fast real cheap. Like I really can’t say that I trust you. It could be say learn fast learn cheap. I said no fail. I can’t say that. I said you have psychological problems that I can. I mean you truly have psychological problems. And I’m sorry.
Doug: [00:35:00] That’s beyond the scope of my knowledge base. You should get professional help. I’m serious. I mean this is not just there’s not a joke it’s not just a fun slogan fail faster and you will get there quicker.
Tripp: [00:35:15] Ok. I think that’s the strongest we can get that message out. Tell me about the Vermont Toddy. Our craft cocktail recipe is that. Is this a an original or is this one that’s been around.
Doug: [00:35:30] Well this is an original. So I’ve always wanted to go through this winter and I figured it may as well get this out before spring gets too much further in here. Got to get this hot drink out. You know for the winter should’ve done it earlier. But I’ve always wanted to have a toddy. There was a good toddy and I’ve tried and tried and tried it and I’ve done complicated ones. And usually they’re pretty thin. Chef Phil works for the distillery came up with a recipe using tea. That was really good. It was good but I didn’t like the caffeine in it.
Doug: [00:36:01] You know in the non caffeinated tea didn’t work and then I kept playing with it and then I made just a simple switch.
[00:36:09] He’s classically used honey or sugar a sugar cube sugar cube common Honey’s common and and you’ll use all kinds of different flavors and you’ll put different things in and you’ll put in spices and I went to spice right with all kinds of spices and then I had some friends from Vermont here and I started joking about we’ll make a Vermont Toddy. And so we took it and it’s in the show notes.
Doug: [00:36:37] But three quarters of an ounce of maple syrup you know good Vermont maple syrup.
Doug: [00:36:43] Three quarters of an ounce of lemon juice ounce and a half.
Doug: [00:36:47] In this case of our keel boat whiskey.
Doug: [00:36:50] And then three ounces of boiling water. And so if you add that up it’s about a 50 percent water 50 percent of the stuff and suddenly in spit in place of all of the spices not the kind of stuff that good quality maple syrup the real stuff. Now the real stuff really gave me the backbone that I was looking for in it. And finally after dozens and dozens of tries I got a toddy that I really enjoy on a cold winter’s night OK.
Tripp: [00:37:23] And so you don’t get in trouble is there a Canadian Toddy.
Doug: [00:37:29] Well the session there but these were my rights so I’m going to keep it there for them.
Tripp: [00:37:33] OK. All right.
Doug: [00:37:36] Lois Lois this one’s for you the Vermont Toddy. So in your memory and Sue Hogan too.
Tripp: [00:37:43] Okay. All right. So feeling fearlessly with the Brain Brew Whisk(e)y academy it was. It’s this whole theme of a failing and being able to laugh about it and have fun with it.
Doug: [00:37:58] Until we talk about it again and again and again and again because it is the root issue for most people. I’d love to do it but I’m just scared. Well let’s do something.
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