The Apex Podcast

Rethinking Youth Education: Design Thinking, Community Engagement, and Cultivating Empathy with Joel from TomTod Ideas

April 17, 2024 • Apex Communications Network

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Have you ever considered the profound impact design thinking could have on the development of middle schoolers? Join Jan as he chats with Joel from TomTod Ideas and uncover how revolutionizing the education system through co-learning and innovation can reshape not only individual lives but also entire communities.

This episode is full of insights for anyone involved in youth development or education.

We explore frameworks, that challenge traditional career trajectories and encourage students to ask, "Who do I want to be?" rather than, "What do I want to do?" Our conversation reveals how Joel's initiatives, including summer camps and after-school clubs, are equipping adolescents with tools to authentically engage with their community and foster a generation of proactive and empathetic leaders.

Lastly, we turn the spotlight on the essence of organizational culture and the collaborative spirit that fuels TomTod. We discuss the significance of investing in culture from the get-go and how nurturing this within a team, regardless of size, can lead to a dynamic and supportive work environment.

This episode isn't just an interview, it's an invitation to rethink the way we approach learning, teaching, and the spaces we create for the next wave of change-makers.

Learn more about TomTod Here: Learn More

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Speaker 1:

All right. So we're just going to close our eyes for a second and you're going to feel our feet touching the floor, Our booties are touching these benches, Kind of feel yourself, sink down into those two points right your sacrum and the bottom of your feet. And as we identify the presence in those two areas of our body, we realize that there's a lot of extensional stuff going on inside of our brains. But for the next hour we're going to get to shed all of that. In a couple of seconds here we're going to take a big multi-second breath in through the nose and let loose a deep exhale through the mouth in three, two, one and release. Now we're gonna tilt our head from side to side, Maybe even roll back and forth a little bit, until we find a point where maybe there's a little bit of tension. As we identify that point of tension, we'll just kind of rock back and forth on that point A couple of seconds here, as we're rocking back and forth on that point of tension in the neck, we're going to repeat that same breath process as we bring our heads back to center. Three, two, one. And as we finish the exhale we'll open our eyes.

Speaker 1:

And welcome to the Apex Podcast. Welcome everybody to another episode of the Apex Podcast. As always, I'm your host, John Almasy, and today I have the privilege of sitting down with my friend, Joel. Joel is the executive dreamer at an organization called Tom Todd Ideas here in Northeast Ohio. He's been at it for a long time, has made a lot of impact in the community and I'm super excited to dive into the organization because I've been involved with it now for multiple years, starting off in kind of a singular capacity and then slowly really seeing what they do, seeing the mission of the team and buying even more into the culture and the mission, and have become involved in multiple different areas of the organization over the last couple of years. So, Joel, super, super grateful that you're willing to take the time to come and hang out and I'm really excited to dive into more of the story.

Speaker 2:

So thanks for spending your Friday with me. Yeah, thanks so much for the gracious welcome and the space. I'm excited to spend some time chatting with you, yeah.

Speaker 1:

So I like to start really, because obviously I know you and but you know, but a lot of people that are listening may be getting to meet you for the first time. So prior to Tom Todd being a thing, there was a Joel, right Indeed. So I guess my first question is really who was Joel before Tom Todd? Were you born and raised in this area? Where'd you go to school? Give us a little bit of a background of who is Joel.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, absolutely so. Born and raised here in Canton, ohio, and I've spent pretty much my whole life here in Northeast Ohio, but with a lot of traveling to try and get a pulse on all the things incredible things that are happening outside of the area here as well, but deeply invested in this community and care a lot about where we've been, where we are and where we could go together. And I graduated here from Glen Oak and then from Malone University, here locally, spent my first eight years outside of college in youth ministry and specifically working with middle schoolers. I was at these two larger churches. It's pretty unusual in ministry settings to get to work exclusively with middle schoolers. Usually you're doing a lot of different things.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I feel like ministry leaders are always wearing so many different hats.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, so I had this pretty unique privilege of working exclusively with middle schoolers because I was at these really large churches that that had that kind of capacity to do that, and in that space I just came to so deeply appreciate this incredible developmental stage that is early adolescence.

Speaker 2:

It's absolutely a unique stage of existence and uh, and getting to live life alongside of uh these middle schoolers was was such a gift and I had so much fun as learning from them and sharing with them Uh and and through that uh really felt uh drawn to the work that I get to do now, and so it was, after eight years, sort of feeling the the draw uh out out of vocational ministry, uh and and into um, but still wanting to work with middle schoolers and still uh, support them and empower them and learn from them, explore community with them. That that was sort of what Tom Todd got launched out of.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I really and I've always loved this about the way that you describe things that it wasn't you know. You could have described your inspiration, let's say, for working with middle schoolers or continuing on as, oh, I'm going to provide them something, something, or I'm going to give them knowledge, right, which is a lot of times. What I hear from organizations is like, oh, we're going to provide this framework to middle schools, or we're going to do this thing, or we're going to, you know, teach them something. But you were like well, I'm learning from them.

Speaker 2:

And then collaborating with them.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, absolutely. What is the difference between just straight up, like passing knowledge or, you know, teaching something and then creating a space for learning and collaboration?

Speaker 2:

Yeah well, I appreciate you noticing that, and it is absolutely an intentional choice and something that we want to lean into and that we want to continually strive to get better at as well. A value that we have is around being co-learners.

Speaker 2:

We talk about that a lot as a team, and part of that is this concept of just being lifelong learners. Right Of that. We always have more to discover, more to grow in, more to explore in the world around us, and so what else can we dive into and engage with? So, and then that lifelong learning if you really are leaning into that kind of concept or motif I mean, that's not something brand new, right, like a lot of people have that goal and desire.

Speaker 2:

I think, alongside of that, you have to embrace this concept of well, then that means, if I'm going to be a lifelong learner, that there's everyone around me has things to teach me, and that I'm not in a space or a role to deliver goods to some people and then receive only from others. Right, that it's, there's a um, a coexistence there, and so that is also true with middle schoolers, that they are in this very unique stage, as I referenced earlier, where their brains are just on fire, like they're neurologically, just cognitively, changing rapidly. It's the most uh, what, what's happening, like it's the most synaptic activity of your entire life. I'm so glad you said that, like I was like but my nurse brain.

Speaker 1:

I spend so, so much time looking at neuropsych and psych and the different developmental stages and I think it's really helped me with team leadership and my keynote speaking and stuff Knowing what the audience needs to look for, what stage of life they're in, what they're dealing with existentially, stuff like that. And you're absolutely right, that stage of middle school is the most neurological growth that happens outside of like ages zero to two years.

Speaker 2:

Right, right, you know, and the zero to two years, such a pivotal stage right and the neurological growth that's happening in there, is obviously distinctly different and unique Right. Well, in middle schoolers.

Speaker 1:

You have hormones added in there as well which is like when you're a baby. It's really strictly like neurological growth and sensory information. You're like I get to see the world progressively clearer.

Speaker 2:

Yeah.

Speaker 1:

You know, it starts like I can't see anything 10 feet past me and then all of a sudden I have, you know, perfect vision and I'm, you know, hearing things and mimicking words and all this other stuff. But then you're an adolescent and you know, your estrogen levels are fluctuating, your testosterone levels are fluctuating. You're having all these new you know experiences or thoughts or feelings for the first time. Their highs are higher, the lows are lower for the first time in your life. I mean, it's a very, very intense stage of growth.

Speaker 2:

I mean part of that early adolescence right is an awareness of the world around you. That doesn't exist when you're a baby right or you're coming into that understanding, as an infant, of awareness.

Speaker 2:

As a middle schooler, you have awareness and what you're transitioning from childhood into adulthood and that middle school age is that gap, it's the bridge between those two that you're starting across that journey into adulthood and you're moving from a very concrete thinker into abstract thinking. Right, you're moving from the world as black and white and fits in clear boxes into man. There is a lot of nebulous area out here and there is a lot of space to discover and there's a lot to lean into and explore together. Discover. And there's a lot to lean into and explore together. And so it's. It's such a, it's a liminal space and it's such an exciting space to join middle schoolers in and and and to learn then from them and to see that.

Speaker 2:

I think a lot of us as adults struggle with change, right, like it scares us, it makes us, it freaks us out. And middle schoolers, their entire identity is change. That is what everything is happening to them You've referenced physically, mentally, socially, emotionally. We move their buildings. So they're moving physically from an elementary school building to a middle school building. We take every change that we can and we smash it into those years and they're figuring out autonomy, and so there's so much to for them to discover, and then that means that there's so much for us to learn from them about navigating change and to share with them on our experiences of that For sure. Uh, it's a, it's a two way street, yeah.

Speaker 1:

I, I've. I noticed that when I went to my first um camp, what, if you know and I think that's actually was my entrance point into Tom Todd was I got shout out to Zane Sanders you know got.

Speaker 1:

I don't even remember how that happened it was a Facebook DM or an email or ran into him somewhere. I don't know how it all went down, but I ended up at a camp what if? And that one thing that I really noticed was, you know, they were coming up with ideas and solutions that I had been involved. You know, I had lived downtown at that point I was trying to found a business downtown, had been in a lot of like city council conversations, conversation listening to what politicians were talking about in the area, the issues that we were trying to solve, and they came up with a lot of the same issues, very different solution sets, and they tended to be very grounded in like activating at the community level. They were people oriented like they didn't see these barriers of funding or dollars. They're like if people were willing to put in more effort here, here and here we could do this.

Speaker 1:

you know which, in some cases as an adult, you look at that and you're like, oh well, that's just aspirational Right. But I think I left that and was like when did I get so cynical?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1:

What happened that? I don't believe that if people genuinely invested in it, they would be able to make it change. And that's one thing that really has always kind of stuck with me about interacting with kids that are in that space, because, to your point, it's a phase of transition, so to them, like the world is just this, every puzzle piece could be moved, and why not?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, yeah, I think a significant difference between middle schoolers and adults is that middle schoolers are more likely to say, more apt to say, well, why not? And adults or, are more likely to say well, probably not. You know, like we've already passed the question into the solution, we haven't lived in that space enough to entertain the possibility. And, and the beauty of early adolescence is that is their life stage entertaining the possibility. Who am I, what am I becoming, what do I see in my future? Like that, that is right sm stage, entertaining the possibility. Who am I, what am I becoming, what do I see in my future? That is right, smack dab in the middle of what they are. And they still have childlike imaginations. They're still fully engaged in that imaginative space. And again, the more we age, the more we hear the word no, the more we let that no press down our possibility. Our willingness to down our possibility, yeah, and our willingness to engage with possibility.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, yeah. One other thing that really stuck out to me at the Camp what Ifs and I do want to talk about a lot of the other programming, because I feel like Camp what Ifs is a pretty staple thing.

Speaker 1:

If somebody knows about Tom Todd generally, they know what a Camp what If is, and I know that there's so many other things you do. But like, for like 30 more seconds we'll focus on camp what yeah, cause you, you mentioned something about how like the middle school kids and bringing them together and like showing them how to collaborate in community and all of these other things doesn't just impact them in one area. Right, you talked about their entire lives being changed physically, mentally, like spatially, emotionally, everything. One of the things that blew me away the first time I went to a camp what if was the fact that you were teaching design thinking frameworks to middle school kids and that was like what sold me 100%.

Speaker 1:

I'm like I need to like figure out ways to support Tom Todd as much as I possibly can.

Speaker 1:

Um, so, for people that aren't like intimately familiar with the design thinking process, I mean the general idea is you're teaching people how to move through stages of understanding what it's like to have an idea, look at that idea, understand the different things that go into that idea, figure out how to experiment into whether or not that thing can work and then repeat that process. So it's kind of like the scientific method, a little bit different, but it's a very valuable framework and I think that it applies to every area of life. You might learn, you might be teaching design thinking in the context of coming up with a way to solve a community problem. But have you seen and I mean you've been doing this for long enough now that you know middle school kids are now graduating high school, right, you know we're in school and everything else? Has there been any instances of kids saying, hey, like learning to think this way impacted other areas of my life, or you know decisions that I was making and stuff like that?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, absolutely, the A particular differentiator of design thinking in my mind is just like you described it, and that it engages the end user of the idea in a more purposeful way. Like it doesn't say I'm going to make an idea for you, but you're only separate from the idea, like you're only the receiver of it. It says, well, how, in that design process, do you engage the people you're creating an idea for, so that it's really grounded in their experience and and centered in in that reality? And it's iterative and our, our leaning has been more into like a human-centered design or liberatory design model. That really challenges all of us to be aware of our own biases, that we're bringing to the table when we're designing, when we're thinking, when we're creating, and to make sure that we're engaging the audiences that we want to ultimately deliver something for in the conversation. So all that to say is that middle schoolers are incredibly empathetic. You were observing that earlier they see people and they see them as humans, and then they see like, well, they deserve to have a human experience and to be supported in their humanity, right, and so what?

Speaker 2:

As we've talked with our alumni over the years absolutely, we've heard that what the Tom Todd.

Speaker 2:

Experience provided for them was that I can do something Like I don't have to wait until some future imaginary day. I can do real things starting right now and it can be part of a process. Like I don't have to wait until some future imaginary day. I can do real things starting right now and it can be part of a process. I don't have to be completed. I don't have to have all the answers, I don't have to be at the solution part of the process, I can just be in process, and that that is the beauty of design. Thinking right Is that it's iterative, it's not linear, and that you're constantly in the cycle, and so what we've heard from alumni is that said, well, this freed me up to start that journey earlier, so that then I can keep iterating as I'm into high school, as I'm trying out different leadership opportunities, as I'm trying out different ways to experience my community, as I'm trying out different ways to share my perspective and my insight with the world around me.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I love that you anchored in, I get to try out, right, I think there's so many people even now I do a lot of coaching um through the programs that I teach for um with entrepreneurs that are, you know, has spent 15 years in corporate and are transitioning to building their own independent practice or um people that um are starting there to hang up their own shingle for the first time. So I worked almost exclusively with entrepreneurs or or people transitioning out of corporate America and I talked to people in their thirties, forties, fifties that have not had that realization that life is an iterative process and you don't have to identify with the labels that were given to you and you don't have to root your entire identity in your work and you don't. You know that you have permission to try, yeah, a bunch of different things and I, you know I was grateful and blessed enough to have that realization at like 25. But I can't even imagine what it would have been like for me if I was in middle school and I had that implanted, versus when I was going through school. The only thing I ever heard was go get a degree or you're a failure.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, yeah, you know. And and that's another piece that really emotionally kind of connects me to Tom Talk, because I'm like we're not just providing this framework, we're giving kids permission to not 100% anchor their identity in something that they might achieve and then get there and be like, well, this isn't fulfilling. Did I fail Right?

Speaker 2:

right. I think we as adults do kids and ultimately the future adults, a big disservice when we focus so much of our conversation with kids about around this question of what do you want to be when you grow up, like it's such a, it's a broken question that has been ingrained in our society for so long. We don't know how to move away from it. But we know, right, that there's not a single thing you have to be when you grow up, I mean vocationally. We know that we've moved away from that societally until now. I don't know what the stat is, but that the many, the many different kinds of jobs that the average adult is now going to have I think it's like five to seven throughout their career path.

Speaker 1:

At this point.

Speaker 2:

As opposed to say my grandfather, who worked at one place for his entire life at IBM or other folks like that, that they had the singular space.

Speaker 2:

So we know that we're constantly going to be reinventing ourselves, but we're still asking the same question, as if there's a singular answer to that, and I think there's folks that have pushed against that.

Speaker 2:

Well, maybe asking like, well, what problem do you want to solve? Or what do you want to create? And part of what I hope that we help kids lean into is that they look at the community around them and they look and see where do I want to serve, like, who do I want to help lift up? Who do I want to come alongside, who do I want to help lift up? Who do I want to come alongside? Who do I want to learn from? And that there's so many questions to engage, starting in middle school, continuing into adulthood that are beyond like what's going to make the dollar, but that are how am I going to engage in impact, which can be done through a job, absolutely, and can be done in so many other elements of our lives? And that's what education ought to be about is how do we develop as a human and what does that look like in the construct of the community around us?

Speaker 1:

yeah, I had a conversation with I just recorded a podcast last week with this woman named dr kia darling hammond and she created this framework called the thrive framework. Um, super, super interesting, uh woman like I could talk to her for hours our podcast ran like 20 minutes over and we're like oh my gosh, we like we're almost an hour and a half deep.

Speaker 1:

We have to cut this. Um. And and she, inside of this thriving framework, talks about transitioning the question from what do I want to do to who do I want to be, and focusing a lot of the internal effort not on, like, existential accomplishment or external accomplishment, but if this is, you know, I want to be able to serve, I want to be able to learn. She talks about the critical nature of youth, being oriented towards experiences and learning, versus, like locking yourself into one specific trajectory. Um, and saying that when you go out and you make an intention like, okay, up until the age of 22 or 25, my goal is to work under great leaders, is to serve people in unique ways. You know, is to do X, y or Z thing so that you have the chance to be a sponge. Yeah, just soak up as much of this knowledge. Whereas you know, like you were just saying, the alternative to that is hey, when you turn 18, you have to have everything figured out.

Speaker 2:

Right. Yeah, you've decided either it's a career or it's a college, or you know, right, you know what track you're on and right so, outside of the camp, what if, and?

Speaker 1:

and you know these frameworks and stuff that are taught within that, I know that, that you know you do programming inside of schools um, there's other ways that you partner. What are, what are some of the other popular ways or maybe popular is not the wrong, the right way to describe it, but ways that you partner with schools that get you fired up or get the team fired up for, you know, middle schoolers.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, absolutely. We have four big chunks of our programming, four buckets of programming, if you will. So summer programming camps are one big element of that. That's where my brain was before I walked in here today was finalizing our summer schedule and getting everything, all the little logistical details in place for launching registration and getting everything going, for I think this summer we're looking at like 18 different summer experiences across nine weeks and so a bunch of exciting stuff there.

Speaker 2:

During the school year we do classes, which are school partnerships. So we're in the classroom alongside partner teachers Most of the districts that we're in we're actually seeing an entire grade band of middle schoolers. So we'll see, like all the seventh graders at a school, for example, and we'll go in once a week across the course of a semester or a school year and we'll walk through that design thinking process that you were referencing earlier. We don't always do the design thinking forward facing. It's more of sort of what is like the underground supports that uh to towards the students we're looking at.

Speaker 2:

What is your community and you're experts on your community too right, you're like you've lived in it, you experience it, and so what can we all learn together about our community and discover? And then, through that discovery, what can we create in response? Like, what are your ideas to respond to that? So we do classes. We're working with hundreds of students every semester in that, and then we do clubs after school, out of school time, sorts of experiences. Those are more kind of project-based mentorship, a certain element of positive youth development or youth participatory action, research that really leans into that of centering student voice and student direction.

Speaker 1:

What was that? Youth participation action research.

Speaker 2:

It's a mouthful.

Speaker 2:

Youth participatory action research YPAR is how it's often referred to, and it's sort of a substream of participatory action research. Which is to say, if you're going to do research on a particular subject group, what about actually including them in the research, and not just as objects of the research but in designing the research and in implementing the ideas and responses to that research? And so YPAR really looks at how do we engage middle schoolers in well, adolescence in general? We take the middle school bent on it and say how do we invite them into the process of creating, of choosing the problem that we want to solve and then creating the solution to it, all wrapped up into one? So those are our club opportunities are a bit more of a deeper dive. Our classes are a bit of the broader kind of introductory. Our summer programming that I mentioned and then our community collaborations could look like anything from we do professional development to consulting to curriculum development alongside school districts or other programming partners and look community quests of ways to invite middle school action into into their community.

Speaker 1:

So I really love that. I think that that last one is one that I I wasn't even like super aware of, but I think makes a lot of sense. If you're, you know, at a school district and you've been struggling, you know, maybe struggling with buy-in from that specific grade level, or you're trying to figure out how to create more of a sense of community within that grade level, or you know, whatever metric you're trying to deal with, or administrations, you know, coming down and you know we have to try to figure this out, type of thing. I think bringing somebody in as a third lens period is always a good move, um, but if it were, you know, like I would look at. The Tom Todd team is just, like you know, middle school experts of of innovative curriculum you know ideas, so I would.

Speaker 1:

I think that that is a phenomenal offering. I didn't even, like I said, I wasn't even hyper aware that that was a thing, but if you are listening to this and that's something that you know you're dealing with, or you're running up against a brick wall bringing somebody in from Todd Todd, even just for a brainstorming session or a consulting session. I think would probably be a huge unlock for people, and we do that.

Speaker 2:

I mean with school districts themselves or with community partners that work with early adolescent audiences. Right that there's definitely overlap there. Last year, I think, we worked with just over 2,800 middle schoolers in those core programming offerings, so that's where we're seeing them on a regular basis for some kind of consistent programming.

Speaker 1:

And that's now across both Stark and Summit.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, or is there multiple Is?

Speaker 1:

that the two counties that we're kind of in right now.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, that's where our service delivery to middle schoolers is centered right now, and then the sort of broader work around professional development or consulting. That obviously has been more flexibility Right, because we don't have to have someone show up into a classroom with middle schoolers. Right, lots of opportunity there.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I mean, and that move up into Summit has been something relatively in the recent years, so I guess kind of a two-parter, yeah, yeah, how long has Tom Todd been around now and how many like maybe that first year or first two years? You know you said the number this year is 2,800. How many do you think roundabout, you know, did you impact in those first two years? Cause I'm assuming that now it's like drastically, you know exponentially, grown from that first year or two, um, and then second half.

Speaker 1:

Anytime that you go through an expansion like that, there's always highs, lows. You have to figure out new logistics and all that other type of stuff. What are some you know, uphill climbs that you've had to make, expanding into a new county, and you know, I feel like Northeast Ohio is all relatively similar, but I'm sure that there's, whether it's finding people or it's, you know, having to build connections with new people there. It's, you know, having to build connections with new people. There's always, you know, slight, maybe even cultural differences between the way that the counties operate and stuff like that.

Speaker 2:

So, um, yeah, I'll leave that there. So the first question is the easy one to answer, right, so we've been around 12 years this coming fall. So, uh, we are a middle schooler as an organization at this point right.

Speaker 2:

We're that same age. It's a fun, fun space to be and we I think it's helpful to think about Tom Todd and kind of two seasons, our first five to six years we're really figuring out who we are and and what our offering space is to the community around us and to the world, and so for everybody building a business right now.

Speaker 1:

I want you to double take note of that, because every one of you that are in my DM saying that you watched some course that told you that you could make six figures as a. Whatever you're trying to do in the next 90 days is lying to you.

Speaker 1:

And I continuously reinforce that. It takes years of investment, and this is like the third guest in a row that has said the first five to six years is an experimental phase. So don't beat yourself up if you're not where you want to be in your first year. Yeah, sorry, go ahead.

Speaker 2:

I love it. I love it. It's a funny. The experience of ours is is that these two simultaneous truths, which I mean. That is paradox. Right, and that is life, to me is paradox and the that in our first two years we had the core elements of every program that we do. Today we're there like we tried out a prototype of everyone. We've had some kind of mvp running and at the same time, five to six years to actually like right, Uh, you know, put, put that into a deeper action that could, we could leverage growth on Uh. So if you talked to me five to six years ago, I would. It was like me, one other nine of us on the team, 2,800 middle schoolers, much broader geographic impact and the depth of what we're providing to middle schoolers has grown as well. So we've had the privilege of growing in both depth and breadth, which is what's particularly exciting to me.

Speaker 2:

Your second part of the question was about the sort of like how has that expansion looked and how is that how we've navigated multiple communities? One big transition that my team really have has helped me to discover, and we kind of all discovered together, is when we first started. The city of Canton was very focused on that and we started to start growing into Stark County. And now we've got to be an expert in these other communities within Stark, in Plain Township or in North Canton or these different spaces. And then, as we moved into Summit summit, we realized we just couldn't be an expert on every community anymore. Like we, we're still a relatively small team. We can't pull that off.

Speaker 2:

And so what we realized we need is what we actually were and we just hadn't put the understanding to it is that we understand what the components of community are and that those components are true wherever your geographic space is.

Speaker 2:

And so when we look at a community, what are the different elements? So we try and connect students so that they see everything from business to education, to health care, to social services, to arts, to neighborhoods, like all the different. There's probably like 11, 12 different core building blocks that all work together to build a community. So how do you connect people into those? How do you create exploratory options for middle schoolers to discover what those are and to engage in conversation with folks in all those different sectors? That's what we realized our space was. We don't have to come into Barberton and be an expert on Barberton. The people in Barberton are those experts right and so like? Let's not try to be what we're not, but what we can uniquely do is create the space where middle schoolers and those community experts can share back and forth and can learn from each other and can then co-create ideas out of that space.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, yeah, I love that, I love that. Um, you know you're basing it off of core building blocks, right that that, and you can transplant that wherever that goes. I think that's another reason why it can take years.

Speaker 1:

You know you're saying you had this realization, year 12, right Of going into stuff and why? Um, it's important if you're going to go into trying to build something and trying to make a long term impact to continuously. And it probably helps that you're continuously reinforcing your own mindset with the curriculum that you're teaching the middle schoolers. Right, it keeps you flexible. You know you have to be open to moving two degrees to the left, two degrees to the right. You know, very rarely in life is it actually a massive benefit to do a whole 180.

Speaker 2:

Right, yeah.

Speaker 1:

But moving two degrees to the left, two degrees to the right. If you're so cynical that you believe that you're, like, 100% on the right track, 100% of the time, I can promise you you're not. I've been in that headspace. It's not feasible. But identifying, hey, we're really good at setting up, especially holding space for people, which I think is also a unique part of just like the Tom Todd culture in general. I've noticed it in the meetings that you hold, um, the tone that your team uses when communicating with people, all the way from, like, written communications via email to in-person experiences. There's some offices that you walk into and you walk into the room and everybody continues working at their cubicle and the one person that's there to meet you comes up and talks to you and then, like, shuffles you back to the office that you're supposed to go to because you don't want to interrupt the vibe of everybody inside of their little space. Never once have I walked into the Tom Todd office and not had everybody kind of be like what up?

Speaker 1:

Yes, they're a friendly group.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, which? And I?

Speaker 1:

think it, and part of it is just hiring and the types of people that are attracted to the type of work you do, which could be a blessing right, because the types of people that are attracted to the type of work you do, um, which could be a blessing right, cause the types of people that are willing to give back to middle schoolers and dedicate their lives to that, we're probably skew towards the higher side of empathy. They skew towards a little bit more playfulness. Um, you know they're not 100%. Um, nothing against my tech guys, but engineers, you know that maybe enjoy a little bit more introversion, right, there's nothing wrong with that. Everybody needs to have their own space that they feel comfortable. But part of it might be that I doubt that that's 100% of it. I know that there's definitely been a lot of thought that goes into the Tom Todd culture.

Speaker 2:

Yeah.

Speaker 1:

I don't know where exactly to start with it, because I, just like I said in the email leading up to this, like I've always admired the way that that culture is set up, and I try to implement some of the things um with my team. You know what, when you think of the Tom Todd culture, what comes to mind for you?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, oh gosh, it's been such a learning experience and a growth Like it's been. It's been a it's been me learning and developing over time, absolutely Obviously still deeply in progress. Uh, it's been our team figuring out those team rhythms and uh spaces and how, how do we do that? You know all of our virtues, and, like anyone's, virtues are not. We might have like natural proclivities in particular directions, but they don't just happen by accident, right, like they take practice, they take exercise, they take honing in order to you have to embody them, yeah, otherwise they're just words and you have to continually pursue them. You don't achieve a particular virtue, right. You don't achieve that character trait, and then you're done, and then you just have it, and so that's what I appreciate about our team, and I think it's one of the things and I'd mentioned this earlier but how do we embrace that culture of continuously learning and that we want to always be learning and we want to have a spirit where we're always taking in and considering how else we need to grow, and that's on a personal space and organizational space, like. So right now we're we're co-reading a book called design for belonging that is challenging us to have conversations as a team, and so we discuss that regularly to sort of dive into like what are each of our personal learnings from that, and then how should that impact us organizationally? So we've tried to set up that into rhythms of development as an organization.

Speaker 2:

I think a big, another big piece of our culture that I've just recently have gotten words to, but it finally put words to a feeling that I've been trying to get after For a long time.

Speaker 2:

I'd say to my team members that we're humans first and so like let's be aware of that. And then one of my professors this past semester or a year ago or so, was saying this concept of care for the person, challenge the position and holding that like very simple little phrase as an always like every person that works at Tom Todd is a person, right, and they've got life happening outside of work, they've got so many other things going on and so I've got to continually I have that happening too right. And so like we, if we can all bear that in mind for each other, then we can extend so much more grace to each other when life is just going wacko and at the same time we have to get better. Like we deeply care about the work that we're doing, and it doesn't work to half-heartedly show up for middle schoolers Like we've got to be there for them in real ways or they're going to feel like they're getting the same kind of cold shoulder that they get from a lot of other adults, right.

Speaker 1:

Especially since they're hyper empathetic in that stage of life. Yeah, they can detect the vibes very attuned very quickly. Yeah.

Speaker 2:

And so how we? We have to continually challenge ourselves to be better at what we do, uh, and so we can't just say like, hey, it's all good, everything's fine, because it's not always fine, like when life is invading life, like sometimes we've got to draw walls and sometimes we've got to extend grace, and like so it's just navigating that all the time. But I found that that care for the person challenged the position. It's real pithy and it's really helpful. Like it's it moves beyond just a simple phrase when you're really wrestling with it.

Speaker 2:

So I think that's been a big piece. And then I mean the concept of collaboration, right, is not a a wild idea that's out there and and yet it's so challenging to put into motion? And if I've been, especially as you grow, yeah, yeah, yeah, and I've just been continually impressed and grateful for the community here that's embraced this wild idea of empowering middle schoolers and providing resources to support them, and that anything that we do at Tom Todd couldn't work without caring adults also leaning in um, without partners in the community being willing to join in the work. And so just looking for, like, how can we collaborate, how can we come alongside others, how can we mutually benefit each other. Um, that's been a big part, I think, too, of the culture that we strive for.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, Um.

Speaker 2:

I'd be remiss to say I'll. I'll throw in one one, one more, because now I'm thinking of, there's like a few popping around in my head.

Speaker 2:

Oh, I know it's deep that's why I asked the question. Well, uh, you've seen our, uh, our brochure shout out to kayla, who designed this, and to amy, who, I think, had some of the initial idea around it too. We don't, you know, a lot of organizations have a brochure that's like the trifold kind of thing. So our overview brochure it's a. It's a hat, like it's a paper folded hat that you could actually wear, and and that comes from this concept we have, which we work with middle schoolers, right.

Speaker 2:

So we have this mantra we say, whenever we're creating something, we got to finish it and then we got to figure out how can we make that 20% more fun, like cause it's not going to work with middle schoolers if it's just blase and boring, and so how can we? We're always looking and so, yes, it means how can we make something 20% more fun for middle schoolers? But, just in general, like how can we embrace that as an organization? So Kayla created this incredible overview brochure that's a hat that, like everyone that gets it is like what is this? They're so excited they put it on.

Speaker 1:

And so you activate something in them that they may. You know for somebody that may. That piece of them may have been dormant for however long until they received this hat brochure.

Speaker 2:

Yep, yep, you know. So always looking for that kind of like how, how do we differentiate? And? And Kayla and so many of the team do such a wonderful job at really looking for that kind of activation.

Speaker 1:

Yeah Well. So now there's two things that I want to pick out. So, like the first one, I love the idea of 20% fun. I'm definitely going to ask a question about that. But the first thing I want to double click on is I have a real problem with people that you know, as they're building cultures or they try to talk about their company. They're like oh, we're a family, you know, yeah, and I'm like I get where you're going with that, right, until you're a founder that's been around the block and you've had to hire, you've had to fire you've had to discipline.

Speaker 1:

You've had to give grace, you've had to navigate all of these minute situations and you start to realize that there's a lot of minute differences between family and business and I think that statement that you just laid out I mean it's hitting home in a lot of different areas. I mean, I feel like the apex culture is set up very intuitively the same where, you know, take care of the person, challenge the position. I think that's, you know, cool. We are able to do the things that we do and push so hard. We're a small team of five, right, but we have 30, 40 plus clients across multiple states, different service lines, and we're always expanding. There's a bunch of stuff going on because everybody understands that if something were to happen, they would be taken care of. But it's their responsibility and their calling to something greater. One of our core values is community and innovation two of them right, and so they have a calling that because when they come to work, they're putting on this suit of armor or a uniform.

Speaker 1:

I mean this comes from my military background, right, like you're putting on your apex cloak for the day, we'll say, and while you're wearing, that, your responsibility is to push yourself in the position and to find ways to make it better and to call me out if I'm leading us in the wrong direction, which?

Speaker 2:

is something I hammer home constantly.

Speaker 1:

I would much rather know that, like I'm wildly off track with an idea as it's happening, than six months later, after we've been implementing it for six months, and you're like no, I knew that that would have worked six months ago.

Speaker 2:

And I'm like well, why didn't you tell me six months ago?

Speaker 1:

And you're like no, I knew that that would have worked six months ago and I'm like, well, why didn't you tell me six months ago? And I think it's so. It's such a beautiful statement because so many people strive for innovation. They want to have people feel safe and, you know, willing to say, you know, counterintuitive things or contradictory things, to leadership and co-collaborate with their peers and be able to have productive conversations where it's not like somebody has a problem, the other person has a problem. Now the two problems are fighting. There's this problem out here and there's two people with different perspectives now looking at the problem, not each other as the problem. So, without going down that rabbit hole too much, I can see how much is packed into that. One little statement and then the 20% more fun piece I was reading. I forget where I saw the article, but it the essential idea from the article. The essential idea from the article was as you inch towards mastery of a skill, when you start learning something, you have to follow the rules.

Speaker 2:

There has to be step-by-steps. You have to kind of.

Speaker 1:

It's like learning an instrument right, you have to learn the chords, you have to learn the keys, you have to learn the notes. If you're not a musician and you're an athlete, you have to know the drills. You have to know the footwork. You have to practice dribbling a thousand times, take a thousand shots, that type of stuff. Right, you're building this muscle memory. You're doing that thing Once that checklist is complete. They were talking about in this article that the people that have really mastered their craft are the people that are able to actually play.

Speaker 1:

And and that's I think the article was centered around why we say athletes play a game, oh yeah. And it's like, well, it's not like they're just going out there and haphazardly doing stuff, right, but they've reached such a high level of mastery that they can make it fun, yep, right. And then they were referencing people like kobe bryant and they were referencing like track stars that are smiling and like giving the peace sign after hitting a world record and all this other stuff. But it's because they're able to go into that and now, because they've spent so much time invested in it, they're able to make it fun. Yeah, um, so I love that as a final goal at the end of every process. It's like we've created this thing, we've spent so much time looking at it, we've mastered this thing. All right, how do we make this playful? Yeah, yeah, and put it out into the world.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, yeah, I mean leaving space for experimentation, right, and absolutely you've got to do the hard work in order to create that space, in order to have that opportunity to move into that. But it's yeah, and that's what I think is so much fun about our team, and that's what I think is so much fun about our team. And I hear you and I resonate with the the some of the nervousness around family language in in a in a business culture, because the reality is is people move on and people take, and that's what doesn't happen, like in a family, your family, whether, no matter what, for forever, and even even if there's some sort of disagreement and separation, it's still that family tie is still true. And in a business, it's just things change after time, like people take different jobs, and so how do we create the culture that lives outside of the people but is also embraced by the people and that and and that they serve each other?

Speaker 1:

I feel like we could just have an hour long conversation about culture. I'm thinking already. I'm like how can I sucker him back Without with risking being stuck inside the culture rabbit hole as much as I'm sure the listeners are also getting a great kick out of this? You mentioned you're. You've been around for 12 years. Yeah, which means that this culture years gala will be the 11th. You are very good at math, sir one yeah I didn't even have to use my fingers.

Speaker 1:

Good thing, because that's over 10 and I would have not been able to calculate. Um, what about this, you know, now being over a decade? Yeah, um, how has the, the gala, changed over the years? Uh, and then can you speak to what? If somebody were to come to this year's, what are some things that they could expect to see?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, one of the things it's funny, the Feast of Ideas is our annual, it's our biggest annual fundraiser and it's the and it's the.

Speaker 2:

Maybe one of the things that's most unchanged from when it first started, in that there's a few things that we really wanted to do.

Speaker 2:

We respect there's so many fundraisers, there's a lot of great organizations doing incredible work, and that that is always happening, and so how do you invite someone to your thing and have it be somehow different, right, have it be somehow compelling to participate in and to give to, and so one of the commitments that we made, one of the decisions that we made, was that we don't.

Speaker 2:

We sort of strip away a lot of the normal fundraiser kinds of things, and so there's no auction items, there's no raffle baskets, there's none of the sort of kind of thing that you expect to go to a fundraiser and to experience, and instead, what's unique about Tom Todd is we work with middle schoolers, right. So let's center middle school stories, let's center middle schooler experiences, and so we've had the privilege of having middle schoolers join us at the feast since day one, and that's cool, and we interview them, and the wild thing about middle schoolers is you have no idea what they're going to say once you give them microphone right, like it's not scripted interviews, it's not like here. This is what you're going to say nice about us, right?

Speaker 2:

I didn't even think about that part Um it's they're going to they're going to say what they're going to say in the moment, and, and it's going to say in the moment, and, and it's going to be fun and it's going to be beautiful and it's going to be brilliant like it, and and so we, uh. So there's always groups of middle schoolers that share their experiences. In Tom Todd, something we started doing a few years is inviting community champions, adults in the community that, uh, that share our uh vision for middle schoolers and believe in the work that we're doing. And so this year, jeff Daffler, who's the new president and CEO of the Kent Regional Chamber of Commerce, is one of our community champions. Rachel Tekka, who is the executive director of Youth Success Summit, which is an out-of-school-time collaborative in Summit County, is one of our community champions, and we'll be announcing another one here in the coming weeks.

Speaker 2:

But have some great and they're who actually do the interviews with the middle schoolers, and so we have a really fun setting, and then it's called a feast of ideas, right? So you're going to walk away filled with ideas and you're going to walk away filled with really delicious food. So one of the things that we're excited about this year is Chef de man, germany from Scratch Steakhouse and Lounge in Louisville is catering the event and we've got some really incredible small plates that he's going to be doing that you can sort of go around and live chefs that will be preparing them to order. And we're at this incredible venue out in Jackson township, um, the reserve at stone Creek, which is a brand new venue, so very few people have have been inside of it yet and it's a beautiful space, and so that's Thursday, may 9th. Uh, that will be there. And the registration. We just launched our registration and sent out our uh, our invites, uh, recently, so it's all there on our website.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I want to give a quick shout out to everybody that was packing envelopes for that.

Speaker 2:

Right.

Speaker 1:

Including Kayla Hannah. I think the intern, that was there that day. I I made it through 280 that day and there was still.

Speaker 2:

they had already done a bunch and there was still like 600 to go I mean huge shout out to amy, because amy is our logistics juggler and she she juggles all the logistics and and that getting out our feast invites is is one giant project that she wrangles every year and does a incredible job at.

Speaker 1:

So yeah, so many invites, which is great. So if you're listening to this, there's a high probability that you may have received one of those. Take a look at it, read everything that's inside of it, because it's a really, really cool invite, and the stories that are included in there and everything like that, and there's a donor envelope, yeah, so make sure you take a look at that too.

Speaker 2:

One of the fun differences that we did and this was Denisha, who's our lead community catalyst, and Kayla kind of co-brainstorming on this with me of we send out these invites every year but a lot of people can't make it to the feast, but how do we still connect the work that we do with them?

Speaker 2:

And so Kayla wrote up this great story piece, and so you know one of those elements that you're stuffing in right, the first one that someone opens up to read is a story about middle schoolers, because we think that their stories are worth shouting and celebrating, no matter what, like whether you're able to give a dollar or a thousand dollars or whether you're not able to give. You should hear great stories about middle schoolers that challenge all of our presuppositions about what they're capable of and the kinds of conversations we should invite them into, and so we always want to be centering those stories and shouting them out. So we're really excited. This year we kind of changed up the way that we approached our invitation a little bit to even more include what are those stories. And we have sponsorships available too. I'll shout that out that people can just reach out to me Sponsorships from $750 all the way up to $4,000. Those are what helped make the event super successful, right.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I love it, and I mean back to the very beginning of our conversation, right when we were talking about the idea of the frameworks that you teach and how it leaks into everything that you do and you're continuously revisiting that and the culture of the team and everything. Making subtle changes to your invite process is another byproduct of being willing to invest in people and allow them to iterate. And I know that you know half of the conversation. I'm hoping people that you know half of the conversation I'm hoping people pull. You know that middle schoolers are in this transition phase, that they have a lot of great ideas and it's worth investing in them. You know that's one main point that I hope people pull. But the other path is we talked about a lot of really great business principles too.

Speaker 1:

So you know, if you are an owner, if you are somebody building a culture, you're making your first couple of hires. You have a team under 10. Sometimes you can look at these ideas of cultural design, design for human centered design, these other things that Joel and I have talked about. If you've never heard of them before, I highly encourage you to Google those concepts and don't underestimate the value of implementing small things like that, even if you only have a small team. Yeah, yeah, because I I talked to some business owners and I've done consulting work with like culture building and stuff with people that are now like, oh, I'm 15 people deep, now I'm going to start investing in culture. Right, I was like, oh, okay.

Speaker 1:

Right Cause. Now you not only have to invest in culture. That's not even where I start with them. Like one of the projects I'm working on recently, they have their staff of 15. They're like well, I'm, it's time for me to implement a culture.

Speaker 1:

I'm like, no, it's time for us to discover what culture was built while you weren't looking yeah, yeah absolutely and then figure out if that's the one you want, yep, or if we need to work to unwire and rewire, which is a totally different ballgame, because then you're going to have to change people's habits or how they buy in, and you know there's all of this and that's why change management is a degree right, like there's all of this stuff that comes with it. So, if you're in your first couple of years, in your first couple of years, you know, take it from you know how many staff do you have? Now Seven, we have nine. Nine, so Joel's at nine, I'm only at four, with like a fifth one that's a contractor, but pretty much full-time. Yeah, small teams heavily invested in culture and a lot of times I'm sure that you echo this I'm learning more from my staff. Oh, yeah, absolutely sure that you echo this.

Speaker 1:

I'm learning more from my staff than I feel like I'm passing on in any way, right, and I think that that's a great place to be and that's only possible if you set up I like to say you set up the sandbox for people, right, and you constantly make sure there's fresh sand in there and new toys to play with and stuff to experiment with, but then you don't tell them what type of castle to build. You know there's. There's spaces and times where you have to. You're like, hey, we have to do this thing. Very rarely is that the case. Most of the time, if you bring in good people and you have good culture, they will migrate towards the tool that they need and you're like, wow, I didn't even think about using the Tonka truck for that. Like I was going to try to use the excavator. Yeah, for that. Like I was going to try to use the excavator.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, yeah, yeah, like, wow, that actually makes a lot more sense. I love it. So, yeah, you got to learn along the way. Right, that's the. You know our name. Everyone always asks what's Tom, todd, where's? Where's that name from All of your listeners, who are brilliant? People have all already pieced together Like they're a little confused because, like his name's, joel, who are Tom and Todd, right, it stands for tomorrow's ideas.

Speaker 2:

Today, because middle schoolers constantly get this message to wait until some future day. Right, to wait till tomorrow, an imaginary tomorrow that may or may not show up. Wait till you get into high school and then you can do something that matters. Wait till you get your driver's license, wait till you go to college, wait till you get a job and then you can make a difference in your community. And what we're convinced of is that middle schoolers shouldn't have to wait. They can do real things right now. Right, they can start today and make an impact.

Speaker 2:

And to me, that resonates with exactly what you're just saying of like we don't wait until some imaginary future day when our businesses are ready to do the thing that we envision them to be, but we start now with small practices, absolutely, and with the elements that we envisioned them to be. But we start now with small practices, absolutely, and with the elements that we think are pivotal, and then we allow ourself grace to keep changing along the way and developing and learning from each other and learning from others and integrating new practices because we've gotten better. So we don't have to wait until someday to decide to try to do something, and we don't have to have it all decided right now either. Start where we're at and we figure out how to start snowballing those changes together.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, you said the core elements of everything that you do today were around, you know, in years one through six, yeah, yeah, and now they've just been continuously refined, yeah. So, yeah, it's not like you magically have those ideas like, oh, I'm gonna have a breakthrough idea in year 10. Well, actually, it's probably just some wildly modified and improved on version of some core idea or concept. You had day one. I see that all the time in my journaling. I do a lot of stream of consciousness journaling and I'll go back and read something. Um, you know, I have different prompts for myself and some are identity focused, some are personal focused, some are business focused, and I look at some of the business prompts. And some of the stuff that we're doing now was written two years ago, but it didn't like the three things like fate, time and circumstance didn't allow for it to come into existence until six months ago. Yeah, but it was there.

Speaker 1:

It was written down, so anyway.

Speaker 2:

Pat and our adventure curators team. I mean, they've taken it so much further than I ever could. That's what, to me, is so exciting, like the brilliance of that team and the work that they're doing. Now I get to be along for the ride and provide whatever support and encouragement I have.

Speaker 1:

It's incredible. Such a cool place to get to as a founder. You're like whoa, this idea, this thing was just kind of like being incubated. And now it's not just an idea that I held or something that was inside of my mind. This is actually a reality. This is paying people's bills, this is impacting people's bills, this is impacting people's lives. This is you know. And then you transition from the point where it became reality to where other people have accepted it as their own and they drive it forward. And that could be a tough place to be. If you're a founder, that's in that stage. Sometimes you're white knuckle in the steering wheel because you don't want to let go, yeah, and you go through a phase where you're like, oh my gosh, it's happening, like I'm going to have to trust other people with what this is.

Speaker 2:

Yeah.

Speaker 1:

I'm telling you, start with the pinky, One finger at a time. It's a beautiful space. Let loose, You'll let it happen. Let loose If people want to. You know, learn about Tom Todd, connect with you guys you have a website.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, right, you're on socials. Yep, it's Tom Todd ideasorg. T O MT O D, so only one D, because it's not actually a name. Right, it's tomorrow's ideas today, so Tom Todd ideasorg. We're on Facebook and Instagram. On LinkedIn, feel free to catch up with us on any of those channels, and feast registration is on our website right now. Summer camp registration right now it's an expression of interest, but within the next week or two here, all of our summer camps will be eligible to be registered for. Like I said, a whole passel, a cool opportunity this summer for middle schoolers to engage in community explore Northeast Ohio together, awesome.

Speaker 1:

And then if you know somebody that needs to be in Joel's seat, where he's at right now, you can reach out to me. It's Jan. Looks like Jan J-A-N at chasetheapexcom, or you can find me on LinkedIn, facebook I'm probably in your newsfeed. Honestly, if you're in like the Canton area I get. I don't know if they're compliments or insults, but they're like people are like get out of my Facebook feed.

Speaker 1:

I'm like get out of my Facebook feed. I'm like stop watching my stuff. Like the algorithm shows you things that you watch. So and this has been another episode of the Apex podcast, I'm so grateful that you took the time to listen to our conversation today, joel. Thank you again for stopping by and we'll catch you on the next episode. Great thanks.