392nd Floor: Fresh Eyes On Old Problems

Big news first: we’re hosting a live story time at Barnes & Noble Rancho Cucamonga, and that spark of momentum inspired a conversation about momentum’s secret engine—fresh eyes. When a problem keeps circling back, more effort isn’t always the fix. Often, it’s our perspective that needs to move.

We dig into the mental traps that keep challenges stuck: familiar thinking that rushes to labels, emotional stories that cast us as always right or always burdened, and proximity blindness that turns details into a blur. From there, we trade certainty for curiosity and offer questions that cut through ruts: What am I missing? What would a newcomer notice? What if the opposite is true? Along the way, we share why stepping away sharpens focus, and how sleep reorganizes the brain so solutions surface without force.

Then we ground it in practice.  You’ll hear five field-tested methods to get fresh eyes: reverse engineering, changing the frame, stepping away, inviting outside voices, and surfacing hidden assumptions. 

It all lands with a simple parable. Sometimes clarity is about the lens, not the world. If you’re navigating burnout, stalled projects, or recurring conflicts, this conversation offers humane, practical ways to reset and move forward with less strain and more lift. If it resonates, subscribe, share it with a friend who’s stuck on a loop, and leave a quick review—what’s the one assumption you’re ready to test today?

Look up, and let's elevate! 

Transcript

Big News: Story Time Invite

unknown 0:02

Every day. Elevate. Every day. Elevate.

SPEAKER_03 0:13

Every day. Hey, this is Jen the Builder.

SPEAKER_01 0:18

And Corey.

SPEAKER_03 0:20

And we're on the elevator. And Corey, let's just start off with the biggest announcement and hugest invitation to everyone listening.

SPEAKER_01 0:28

Yeah, and I just feel like there should be horns and whistles and bells and all kinds of things just going on.

SPEAKER_03 0:36

Give that all to you. You make some you make good sounds.

SPEAKER_00 0:39

Yeah. I wish I could right now. Let's do it though.

SPEAKER_02 0:52

Woo, woo, woo, woo. Okay.

SPEAKER_03 0:56

We'll stick to our day job. How about that?

SPEAKER_01 0:58

Yeah, there we go.

SPEAKER_03 0:59

Okay. Go ahead. What's the big news?

Theme: Fresh Eyes On Old Problems

SPEAKER_01 1:02

So she's giving the mic to me. And again, I always say, so excited, so happy, can't wait. So I'm not going to use any of those uh usual phrases. This week, March 14th, that's a Saturday at 11 o'clock. Yours truly. And Genevieve Mbody will be at the Barnes and Noble in Rancho Cucamonga reading our books in a story time. And yes, it is a very unique situation because typically um self-published authors don't read their books in in this setting. But we were able to get some things done and figure out the publishing piece, and that's where we're going to be. And we're inviting you, please come out, join us, have a good time, and see what what it is that we do that we love doing and how much fun we have doing that.

SPEAKER_03 2:08

Yeah. Please, please come out. This is I'm gonna label it as a miracle, and that's the space that we're working because all things are possible.

SPEAKER_02 2:17

Yeah.

Reading Styles And New Insights

SPEAKER_03 2:18

So speaking of all things are possible, our episode today is using fresh eyes on an old problem. So sometimes the biggest problems in our lives are not new problems, they're old ones that we are insistent on seeing the same way. We revisit the same conflict, the same work challenge, the same habit, the same conversation, right? I don't know if you can identify with this. Maybe it's with your spouse, your children, a friend, and you just keep going over the same thing again and again and again. And what we're here to say is those things don't change, and we're here to offer a possible way to be, right? So the question is, is the problem the problem, or is our perspective the problem? Today's elevator ride is about learning how to look again but differently. So, for example, Corey and I, we love to decorate. This is true. Oh man, I think that's definitely in our top five things that we just enjoy. We will arrange, rearrange furniture over and over and suddenly realize wow, this space is actually a bigger space or it's a greater space than what we thought.

SPEAKER_01 3:41

Yeah, and we have much more room than we thought we did, and so now we've solved the problem. And sometimes that problem is not just solved by the rearrangement, but just a different point of view or a different angle.

SPEAKER_03 3:55

Right. And I love that you're saying that, Corey, because I mean we might be quick to label something as a problem. It's not really a problem, it's just I just have to see this differently.

SPEAKER_02 4:05

Right.

SPEAKER_03 4:06

Right. Um, here's another great example that happens to me a lot lately is rereading a book and seeing things that I didn't see before. I'm every day in the word, the Bible, and these are things like, oh, I know this story, but there's that one sentence, one line that I didn't get before that changes the whole perspective to that story.

SPEAKER_01 4:36

Interesting, Jen. Um, I I hear people say that all the time, and I I'd be lying if I said it never happened to me, but not as much as I've heard people say that. And I think it's because of my reading style. And it's not good, it's not bad, it's not better than anyone else's. I just have a very unique reading style, so yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 5:01

So let's detour real quick because I think that's important in this piece. I read the way I think, it's very quick. Let's get to the point. Let's, you know, just give me a summary. You well, you say how you are. We're very different in this way.

Why We Stay Stuck: Mental Traps

SPEAKER_01 5:21

Yeah, I'm a very methodical slow reader. I read things multiple times, even if I go over the one sentence, you know, maybe four or five times, because I'm really trying to get that statement to settle in, especially if I read it the first time and it really caught me or got me uh in in my feelings or having me feel some kind of way. I just keep reading it so I can really just saturate myself with it.

SPEAKER_03 5:50

Yeah. So even in this case, sometimes, like if I were to say, oh, um, I don't read well, or you know, I don't, I just want to get on to the next thing. So sometimes the solution isn't new effort, it's new insight. Even in the way I read, like, what am I missing here? Right. So, how do we develop the ability to see old problems with fresh eyes? First, let's talk about why, Corey, old problems stay old. So many problems we stay stuck because we approach them with the same thinking again that created them.

SPEAKER_01 6:25

Guilty.

SPEAKER_03 6:26

Yeah, so it's like we have some common traps. Uh, this one is all too familiar. Familiar thinking, right? Our brain loves patterns. We actually, as humans, love efficiency. So once we label something as unsolvable or label as anything, we stop exploring. Right. We've we've come down with a gavel.

SPEAKER_01 6:49

Yeah, can I give a really simple, and if you're over the age of 40, 50, then you definitely know exactly what I'm gonna uh be hinting at. You go out to the car, you get in, you turn the ignition, and it doesn't come on. Now, our brains tell us we got gas, the car worked yesterday, what the heck could be wrong, and why is my car not starting? So you go through the normal checks, like, all right, the battery was good last night.

SPEAKER_03 7:22

Lights are off.

SPEAKER_01 7:23

Lights are off. What's going on? And and whatever that problem or or opportunity is or could be, we we always start with the same thinking process. And so we're not even gonna get to a solution yet because that that's always the thing that we start with is what could I have done wrong? And it's not what you've done wrong, it's maybe something completely totally different, but that's just how the brain works, right?

Proximity Blindness And Stepping Back

SPEAKER_03 7:51

Right. So yeah, that proves this point. You likely tried everything you thought of, but you're not thinking about everything that's possible that you haven't thought of, right? Right. Second thing is we find that there's an emotional attachment to the story. So you're attached to the story about the problem. Like, oh, I'm I'm the one who always has to fix things, or I'm always misunderstood. When you start thinking in absolutes, that's a red flag. Yeah, right. Um, I'm with a team that never collaborates. So we're saying fresh eyes require this. Loosen your grip on the story. Let that narrative go.

SPEAKER_02 8:40

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 8:41

Right. Um, what story am I telling about this problem that might not be the whole story?

SPEAKER_01 8:48

You mean you could be telling yourself a story that's not true?

SPEAKER_03 8:52

Absolutely. That we've made true because we need to connect things, we need to be efficient. So this is the way I see it, therefore, this is what it is, right?

SPEAKER_02 9:02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 9:02

The third point, and and this um is proximity blindness sounds very rich.

SPEAKER_01 9:10

Too close to it?

SPEAKER_03 9:11

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 9:12

Okay.

SPEAKER_03 9:12

So what happens typically when we're too close to something?

SPEAKER_01 9:16

We don't see any of the details, it's just a big old blur.

SPEAKER_03 9:19

Exactly. And what I love about this is sometimes distance creates clarity. And Corey, you do this really well where you step away from the thing for a little bit.

SPEAKER_01 9:30

Yeah. Uh I I like to offer what happens to me a lot of times when I'm practicing playing bass guitar, uh, I'm trying to get a lick or a riff, and it just feels like my fingers keep turning into spaghetti noodles and they're all over the place, and I'm not getting it. So what I do is I slow it down to the point to where the riff doesn't even sound like a riff, it just sounds like a bass line at that point. And then I begin to speed it up. And then at that moment where I got it at mid uh mid mid-tempo, I haven't got it to full speed, I stop playing it and I walk away. When you come back, muscle memory is something that is so beautiful. It just because your fingers don't forget that pattern. So now it's easier to play that pattern, and it's I find that to be true in a lot of things we do in life.

SPEAKER_03 10:22

So let me ask you something as a musician, because my thought goes into if you're used to playing the same pattern, are you still open to playing it another way?

SPEAKER_01 10:35

That's that's where the innovation comes in. Okay, because now what you can do is I'm gonna not play the third note.

SPEAKER_03 10:44

Ah, so you can play with what you already know and change some things.

SPEAKER_01 10:51

And it's always easier to take away than to add to the so true, so true.

Curiosity Over Certainty

SPEAKER_03 10:58

We we're the school of thought, like it's better to have more. Right. So you can lessen and remove what's doesn't need to be there. So, some examples of this, because you know, Corey, leadership is my passion. Oh, yeah, my calling. So leaders inside an organization often miss simple solutions that outsiders would see immediately because again, we're too close to it. Or families repeat patterns because hello, this is how we've always done it.

SPEAKER_01 11:28

That's one of my most hated phrases. Yes, this is how we've always done it.

SPEAKER_03 11:37

Yeah, there we go again with the always in the absolute, yeah, the same pattern, we're stuck, and we're here to encourage us to get unstuck.

SPEAKER_02 11:47

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 11:47

So, what do we mean by fresh eyes? Here's a reapproach to the situation with curiosity, which is so key and such a beautiful element to invite in your life, instead of certainty. So, asking different questions. So, let's give an example. An old question that a lot of people do is why does this keep happening? Fresh question is, what am I missing? Or what am I supposed to learn in all of this, right?

SPEAKER_02 12:19

Right.

SPEAKER_03 12:20

Um, I love these reframes because if you find yourself in a space of certainty, here's some questions to help you think with fresh eyes or look with fresh eyes. What if the opposite of what I'm thinking is true? So go completely different than where you're at, or what would someone new to this situation notice? There's another powerful element the ability to notice.

SPEAKER_01 12:45

Yeah, that's huge. What can they see that I can't?

SPEAKER_03 12:50

Exactly. Yeah, yeah. And so let's take that a step further. Invite someone, yeah, let them into your space. And um, here's another one, Corey, for fresh eyes is suspending and sometimes even releasing the judgment. So I'll speak on my behalf because I don't know so much, Corey, that you're like this. I will immediately decide most of the time, this is good, this is bad, this is right, and oh so wrong. Right? So there's immediately a judgment on the situation instead of observing. Scientists don't begin experimenting with I already know the answer. They begin with, what? Let's see what happens.

Borrowing Perspectives In Real Time

SPEAKER_01 13:35

Yeah, let's see how it unfolds. I like that though, Jen. And I like the fact that you're you're transparent right now with saying how you typically think and how you're open to change. Yes, that's a good indicator that you're going to evolve in this fresh eye idea.

SPEAKER_03 13:55

Yes, because I'm learning right with everyone else. This is our journey, right? Corey, me, you. Um, next, borrowing someone else's perspective. And it's great. This is why I always ask you, Corey, Corey, there's a situation, what do you think? Or here's where I'm thinking I should go. What do you think? I think I have that conversation with you at least twice a day.

SPEAKER_01 14:21

I don't know if it's quite that much. I feel it is not at all. Uh, maybe once a week or once every other week, but not quite that much.

SPEAKER_03 14:31

Yeah. And if you're not available, because sometimes that may happen, I just go into what would someone like Corey who deeply loves me say? Right? Um, if you're in the area of customer service, what would a customer notice right now? And you don't have to wait for a stinking survey to get feedback from your customers.

SPEAKER_01 14:54

Right.

SPEAKER_03 14:54

It could be real time, guys.

SPEAKER_01 14:56

Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 14:57

What is that other person experiencing about me right now? Or the situation?

SPEAKER_01 15:03

So, quick story. I had an opportunity to be a part of a program a couple of weeks ago at at the job, and in real time, I felt the need and the desire to ask people what their experience was, what could be better, what could be added to the experience that I was a part of. And people were so open and honest, and they were trying to be, you know, polite to what they were saying, but the the negatives that I did uh happen to hear, I was open to it, and I realized like most of the time, people really want to help you to help to solve a problem or to confront the issues that you're dealing with. Not very many people just want to be brutally mean and hurt your feelings and take away from the situation. So, yes, absolutely try to get someone else's eyes on something before you um just drive yourself crazy trying to figure out what I could do better, how could I have done this better? How could I have missed this and and didn't catch it in the beginning?

Innovation Example: Safer Elevators

SPEAKER_03 16:15

Absolutely. That is such good advice, Corey. Um man, there's so much here that we could go into, right? Um hold on. I'm gathering my thoughts because there's so much to go into, but I want to make sure we're moving and honoring the time because believe it or not, guys, Corey and I are on this personal journey to make sure to stay true to times showing up and um not taking too much of yours. So another concept is oh, Corey, I love this part. Real world examples of fresh eyes. Because when we talked about Black History Month, we talked about the elevator. Yeah. Hope you all were able to hear that that segment. So let's go into examples like in business innovation. So many breakthroughs happen because someone looks at a problem differently. Tell us again, remind us how the elevators used to work.

SPEAKER_01 17:15

So the elevators used to work on a pulley system where someone would be pulling the elevator up and down, and it would be go based on weight and balance. And it was really Wow. Yeah, it was really hurting people. I mean, literally taking off limbs and fingers, and uh some people would fall into the shaft and and die from the fall. Some people would fall into the shaft and die from the elevator, crushing them. And there was just a big need for innovation to fix this problem.

SPEAKER_02 17:49

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 17:50

To stop the death and and all the injuries that was occurring. And you can imagine it wasn't just one or two people. This was on a continuous basis.

SPEAKER_03 17:59

Right.

SPEAKER_01 18:00

Continual basis.

SPEAKER_03 18:01

Right. So they're required human operators. Typically in the world, we think, okay, how do we do this faster? How do we do this? Right. But what happened here is they said, hey, it's not that. We need safety systems, yeah, automated controls instead of a human actually fixing this thing, right? So the question that was asked was, do we actually need a human in the elevator? And that's the innovation.

SPEAKER_00 18:30

Yeah, right there, that part.

From Fixing People To Fixing Systems

SPEAKER_03 18:32

See, now I wonder what would this podcast be called if elevator still ran that way? It wouldn't be that. No, because we wouldn't want to please take the stairs. Absolutely. Here's another one for for my fellow leaders. Is there's a leader struggling with disengaged employees? Man, this one's so huge, right? Are your team members engaged? Where are they at? So the old view might be my people just aren't motivated. A fresh view is maybe the system is draining their motivation. So then the shift changes from fixing people to fixing the environment.

SPEAKER_01 19:09

Yeah, and I call that reverse engineering. So basically, what you can do is see how you can worsen the problem to disaster and then go back into that from the opposite end and begin to rework that. What caused these horrific issues to happen within the team? What's happening that I'm not seeing at the end of this problem? And then begin to reverse engineer that and build a greater, much stronger, vibrant team.

SPEAKER_03 19:42

Yeah. So, Gory, that's a beautiful um way to share one of the five ways to get fresh eyes. So just remember that, everyone, it's reverse engineering, which is so powerful. Um, another example in personal life that we might find with team members or ourselves or our children is that I'm burnt out, right? I'm I'm stressed, I'm overwhelmed. Sometimes the problem we're trying to solve is actually a signal. So if it's something like burnout, the old view might be I need to work harder, or people say, Oh, you just need to work harder. Seems kind of cruel.

Five Ways To Get Fresh Eyes

SPEAKER_01 20:22

Counter and uh count, what is it? Caught counterintuitive or counter-yeah, counterproductive.

SPEAKER_03 20:26

Counter healing. How about that?

SPEAKER_01 20:28

Counter healing, yes.

SPEAKER_03 20:30

And it the fresh view is I might need to work differently. Maybe I'm I'm working too hard and there's something I can ease up in my workflow, right?

SPEAKER_01 20:40

I like that a whole lot better than work harder.

SPEAKER_03 20:43

So much better. So, five ways to get fresh eyes. Corey, you led us into reverse engineering so beautifully. The next one is changing the frame. So, what if this problem was actually an opportunity? And that's what we said earlier. Sometimes it's not a problem, it's an opportunity, like, oh, we get to play and rearrange furniture, which we love to do anyways, right? And see what we can do with this space. What if the constraint was actually the gift? Here's what I mean by this, because I'm going through this real time, ladies. I keep getting talked to about or hinted towards limiting our budget. Budget, budget. But guess what? I find that budget limitations force creativity.

SPEAKER_01 21:29

Yeah. And especially if you're naturally creative, what happens is you find more opportunities than ever before because you're you're working with a budget. So you know, oh, I can't go here, not going there, will never go here. And your budget begins to open up because you have more opportunities.

SPEAKER_03 21:49

Yeah. The next one is step away. We talked about this distance. Corey.

SPEAKER_01 21:55

Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 21:56

Yeah, I know you definitely want to. Share. Go ahead and share.

SPEAKER_01 22:01

Um, sometimes you're so close to a situation or a problem that you can't see the details, the intricacies, the mechanisms that are clicking and winding and popping and and moving. So when you take that step back, you realize that that spring isn't triggering the way it's supposed to trigger. And so now I can adjust that little bitty screw in there and have the springs triggering just right. It gives you a better and much fresher point of view.

SPEAKER_03 22:31

Yes. So everyone, walk away from your desk.

SPEAKER_01 22:36

That's it.

SPEAKER_03 22:37

Please get up and walk. I mean, brilliant when leaders do walk and talks with their team members. Sleep on it. So huge. It's okay to talk about this tomorrow. Right?

Rest, Sleep, And Reorganizing Thoughts

SPEAKER_01 22:49

Jen, can I tell you something that I really love with when leaders do this? I love when I ask a leader a question and they say, Let me think about it. Let me sleep on it. I'll get back to you tomorrow instead of that instant no. Because what happens when you give an instant no is that you're shutting down any possibilities for evolution.

SPEAKER_03 23:15

Beautifully said. And then something else to remember is, and we talked about this, Corey, this morning between you and I, and the power of sleep, the power of stepping away. The brain reorganizes information during rest.

SPEAKER_02 23:30

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 23:31

So invite what your body naturally does powerfully by getting the rest that it needs, right? And we talked about too inviting an in outside voice, another way to get fresh eyes, and just simply asking, what am I not seeing? And get get it from someone who's not emotionally invested in the situation.

SPEAKER_02 23:50

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 23:51

Right. Um, last is looking for hidden assumptions. Every problem typically sits on an assumption. Ask yourself, what am I assuming is true? And what if that assumption isn't true? Right? Because fresh eyes start where assumption ends.

SPEAKER_02 24:07

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 24:09

Lastly, we want to talk about the inner work that needs to take place for fresh eyes, and it's simply this let go of the ego, drop the pride, and invite humility. You mean I gotta be humble? Right. You mean I could be wrong?

SPEAKER_00 24:26

Right.

SPEAKER_03 24:27

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 24:27

Yeah, that part.

SPEAKER_03 24:28

I might not see everything. There may be another way.

SPEAKER_01 24:33

I may have missed something.

Hidden Assumptions And Humility

SPEAKER_03 24:34

Yeah. So that's what you were saying earlier, Quarry, that really stuck to me. Is we in we keep staying in these places of being stuck and it stresses us out. It puts a weight on us. That's when we might start feeling burnt out, overwhelmed. And when you invite fresh eyes and you implement this in your life, you are voluntarily saying, I don't want to be in a state of stress.

SPEAKER_02 25:04

Right.

SPEAKER_03 25:04

I'm voluntarily saying, I want to see things healthy. I actually want to get out of this and go on to the next thing in my life. Right. So fresh eyes, again, humility. This invites curiosity, it calls on courage, and it makes you open. Before we end this episode, I want to share a story.

SPEAKER_01 25:24

Oh, yes. This is a great story. And I loved it, I had no idea it was going in this direction. So it just made me feel like, okay, that's a different point of view.

The Clean Window Story & Takeaways

SPEAKER_03 25:33

Yeah, yeah. So there's a woman who moved into a new apartment overlooking a small neighborhood park. Every morning she'd sit at her kitchen table with her coffee and look out the window. Across the way she could see another apartment building, and almost every day she noticed her neighbor hanging laundry outside to dry. But something bothered her. She'd shake her head and say to herself, Why doesn't she wash her clothes better? Those clothes still look dirty. Day after day the same thought returned. She really needs better detergent, I think. One morning as the sun came up, she sat down with her coffee and looked out the window again. But this time something was different. The clothes across the way looked bright. They were clean, fresh. She smiled and said aloud, Well finally, she must have figured out how to wash her clothes properly. Just then her husband walked into the kitchen. He heard her comment and said gently, I woke up early this morning and cleaned our window.

SPEAKER_01 26:45

Still just as funny as the first time I heard it. Um that simple act that that husband did was probably a fresh look from him, which was more important to him than it was to his wife. But I can imagine how she might have felt.

SPEAKER_03 27:02

Absolutely. So sometimes the breakthrough, guys, isn't in finding a new answer. Sometimes it's in asking a better question.

SPEAKER_02 27:10

Yeah.

Closing: Elevate Every Day

SPEAKER_03 27:10

Or getting an answer perspective from somewhere else. Or going to sleep. So old problems don't always need new effort. Sometimes they just need fresh eyes. Well, you know us to take the elevator. We say, look up and let's elevate every day.

unknown 27:34

Elevate every day.