Everything’s a Toy - with Indy Toy Lab’s Jordan Goddard and NASA JPL’s David Delgado
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We started this conversation already laughing.
That turned out to be a clue.
For Episode 5 of This Podcast Needs A Name, I sat down with Jordan Goddard, founder of Indy Toy Lab and former Apple designer, and David Delgado, former Creative Director at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Lab.
On the surface, their work couldn’t look more different.
Jordan designs games and toys that spark curiosity in kids.
David designed ways to help people emotionally connect with space exploration.
But within minutes, they landed on the same truths.
Ask the Question No One Wants to Ask
David described his role at NASA in a way that surprised me.
His job wasn’t to explain rocket science.
It was to ask a simple, uncomfortable question:
Why should anyone care?
Not as a challenge — but as a translation tool.
Strip away the jargon. Remove the assumptions. Find the human reason underneath the work.
If you can’t explain why something matters, your audience won’t feel it.
““My job was never to explain rocket science. It was to help people care.””
You Are (Almost Never) the Audience
Jordan shared a story that perfectly captured the danger of designing from ego.
A game failed for years because the characters were edamame beans.
Smart. Cute. Thoughtful.
Kids didn’t care — because they didn’t know what edamame was.
Swap them for pizza?
The game finally worked.
The lesson wasn’t about food. It was about humility.
Design improves when you stop designing for yourself — and start designing for the people you’re actually serving.
Walking Away Is Part of the Work
Both guests pushed back on the idea that good work comes from nonstop effort.
David talked about how his best ideas rarely showed up while grinding. They surfaced on walks. While listening to music. When his mind was allowed to wander.
Jordan described intentionally placing himself in unfamiliar environments — like hardware stores — just to see objects he didn’t recognize and let his brain make strange connections.
Effort matters.
But space matters more than we’re willing to admit.
“You get one launch day per project. If you’re miserable the whole time, you’re trading months of your life for one afternoon.”
Doubt Isn’t the Enemy — Silence Is
Imposter syndrome came up, as it always does.
Not as something to eliminate — but something to notice.
Both guests agreed: doubt is normal. Expected, even.
The danger isn’t feeling uncertain.
The danger is letting that uncertainty shut you up — keeping ideas hidden, questions unasked, work unseen.
As Jordan put it:
Being creative is often a dance with your own dysfunction.
The goal isn’t to fix yourself. It’s to keep moving anyway.
“Creativity isn’t a talent.
It’s a skill you build— and learn to trust when [a project] looks terrible.”
Where This Lands
This episode wasn’t really about toys or space.
It was about perspective.
About staying curious longer than your ego is comfortable with. About asking better questions before chasing better answers. About remembering that wonder doesn’t scale automatically — it has to be designed for.
So I’ll leave you with this:
What assumption might you need to question before you try to solve the problem?
Listen to the Episode
If you’d like to hear the full conversation, you can listen on your preferred platform:
🎧 Apple Podcasts → Click Here
🎧 Spotify → Click Here
📺 YouTube → Click Here
New episodes of This Podcast Needs a Name explore how creativity, curiosity, and play actually show up in real life — across different disciplines and perspectives.
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