I don’t cry on stage. But I did earlier this year when I told the story in this video.
Here’s why:
In 2014, I met an entrepreneur named Jane Chen with an ambitious mission to save the lives of 1,000,000 premature babies. Specifically, babies born pre-term in countries with poor healthcare and literacy rates. (Where most premature babies are born.)
In the Radical Simplicity chapter of Smartcuts I documented how Jane and her team of designers at Embrace Innovations set this million-baby goal in the face of an impossible problem: They needed to design an infant incubator for 100x less money than the current incubator cost. That’s how much it needed to cost in order to serve the places with the most pre-term births.
They figured out the solution through a clever bit of lateral thinking.
I am thrilled to report that a decade later, Jane just told me that they have now saved over 1,000,000 babies’ lives.
It’s incredible. A million human beings who get a chance at life. And all of those parents who get to see their child grow up.
In this video, I tell the story of how Jane and the Embrace team did it. It’s a story that carries particular meaning for me, as you’ll see toward the end of the video when I choked up.
And I want to share this with you today for three reasons:
The Embrace team was presented with an impossible problem. Make the incubator 100x cheaper. Their breakthrough came from re-framing the question itself. And this is a problem-solving tactic you can incorporate into your own work and life.
At this particular time of year, when you think about the things you want to accomplish next year, I hope you’ll think about how the questions you ask and the wisdom you use can contribute to the world that these million babies will grow up in.
Finally, Jane Chen just came out with a a national bestselling book called Like A Wave We Break, which if you’re looking for a book to gift someone last minute (or to gift for yourself for some New Year’s reading), it is a wonderful memoir about taking trauma and disappointment and turning it into post-traumatic growth. Check the book out here »
This video is from a speech about a year ago as part of some of my new work on decision-making and adaptation. If you like it and its message, please share it along!
Happy holidays,
–Shane
P.S. Paid subscribers of this newsletter get a free signed copy of my bestselling book Dream Teams: Groups That Exceed The Sum Of Their Parts. Subscribe and get yours!
