202: Discovering the Work You’re Built to Do with Don Hutcheson

By September 8, 2017Podcasts


 

Don Hutcheson says: "Every one of us is born with innate talents... it's in your DNA... and you can find them."

Talent guru Don Hutcheson shares how to better know yourself in order to select jobs that optimally align to your talents.

You’ll Learn:

  1. Approaches to get more insight into your unique talents
  2. How to break out of your bubble and expand your perspective
  3. The seven ways people get stuck

About Don

Don Hutcheson is a lifelong entrepreneur, inventor, author and coach. He hosts the daily podcast: “Discover Your Talent—Do What You Love,” which he created to help people find their true talents and use them to build a career of success, satisfaction and freedom. He’s never had a “boss” and has created 6 innovative companies in advertising, publishing, coaching and career planning—and now on the Internet—over the last 40 years.

Items Mentioned in this Show:

Don Hutcheson Interview Transcript

Pete Mockaitis
Don, thanks so much for joining us here on the How to be Awesome at Your Job podcast.

Don Hutcheson
It is my pleasure. I’m delighted to be speaking with you, Pete.

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, me, too. Well, so I read a fun fact about you. You were a Russian linguist in the Army back in the day. Any interesting tales from that experience?

Don Hutcheson
Well, it’s interesting. This was back a good while ago. I was an undergraduate at Emery, and I’d always been a good student but I just lost interest in school and that wasn’t a smart strategy. This was during the Vietnam era and so my draft number came up and so there I am. And, okay, well, I’m going to be drafted.

I’m terrible at tests but I took this blasted test that the Army gave and the one thing I’m good at is languages so I aced this test, and after basic training I got to spend 57 weeks in Monterey, California studying Russian instead of going off to Vietnam.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. So you studied Russian. And then what happened? What did you do?

Don Hutcheson
Well, I studied Russian which was wonderful, and then I had to go to radio school which was terrible because I’m not a techy. And after that I got to sit in a cubicle for about nine months in Germany and monitor Russian tanks in Eastern Germany doing maneuvers, and that’s what I did, monitor their conversations and all those other things. If I told you any more than that, Pete, I’d have to send somebody to take you out because it’s all off the show.

Pete Mockaitis
I was hoping it would be declassified with the time that had… but did you hear a lot of Russian swear words or like lewd tales? I don’t know what they talked about.

Don Hutcheson
I totally did. I totally did. I can think of one that comes to mind but the amount of it, Pete, let’s speak Russian. I don’t want to shock them. But, yeah, I heard a lot of Russian swear words. Things about your mother and things that you can’t possibly repeat.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. Well, we won’t repeat them here. And I think it’s interesting that you didn’t like to be on the radio because you’re not a techy, and now you’re over 500 episodes deep into your own podcast called Discover Your Talent, Do What You Love. What’s the quick background on what that’s about?

Don Hutcheson
I’ve been . . . all my life but I’ve been always been interested in what makes people successful or not. And I started to deep dive in 1988, that really ages me, and I just started looking into the things that people do to succeed and what they don’t do, and that led me to forming a company. I was in the ad business and we built a successful agency. And after 10 years I sold it and developed a whole concept around how to help figure out how to be successful, and we did that for 11 years and helped people all over the world. And then we sold it in 2001 and I moved on.

But when the podcast niche came open, and when we understood the podcast niche, I thought, “What an opportunity to revisit this problem, this issue of why people had such a hard time finding their sweet spot. Why don’t we do a podcast?” And so we took all that knowledge and wisdom after all those years of 28 years and put it into a show.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. Very good. Well, so we talk about knowledge and research. We were chatting earlier and what really piqued my interest was some of the deep, deep research that underlaid your book from a bit ago called Don’t Waste Your Talent and the associated consulting practice. And so, please, lay it on us like what are the discoveries into the human nature that you came up with as you were digging into that.

Don Hutcheson
Well, I’m sure you’ve taken one or many of the myriad assessments that have been developed over many decades about personality and interests and skills and etcetera, personal style, and they’re really excellent. The one I discovered in 1988, and it’s still going on today 96 years later, was developed. It’s not about any of those things. It’s about how you’re hardwired to communicate, problem-solve, make decisions. And it was developed at General Electric in the 1920s so you can imagine over a million people have gone through it. It’s still being used at a research foundation that’s around the world.

And I went through it and it totally helped me understand, and at this time I was, shoot, I was 40 years old, so it helped me understand exactly what my strengths were, what my talents are. And, again, not personality, interests, skills, values, any of those things, but actually how I engage the world. And so there’s a pattern of about 20 abilities and you don’t find them in a self-report test, Pete, that takes 20 minutes, this takes three hours, and you don’t check a box. You actually are presented with diagrams and sounds and images and different kinds of engagements that are very, very interesting.

And after three hours you then get a, shoot, as much as a 60-page report that explains you to you, and then you get a two-hour feedback by somebody who’s highly-skilled, and often times 25-year experience, understanding what this means to you and the kinds of roles and tasks that would put you in the flow and would give you the greatest satisfaction. So that was the starting point. But that’s square one.

And then around that, a brilliant psychologist and I fleshed out this personal vision part which is taking into account not just your abilities, which is the starting point, but your skills, what you learned, your passions and interests, your personal style, your influences from your family, your stage of adult development, your values, putting those into this whole strategic view of who you are and where you want to go.

Most programs are one-trick ponies, and I don’t mean to be too hypercritical but they start with your “why,” and in my 29 years of experience, you start with your “who.” And if you understand your “who” then you can get to your “why” and “what” and “how.”

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. There’s so much to dig into there, Don, so let’s see here. So if someone were interested in doing this three-hour grand royale, you know, invest in patience, where do they go? What’s that called? How can we do it?

Don Hutcheson
We’re putting together this whole concept called The Talent Team. This is off of the two-year, three months podcast Discover Your Talent, Do What You Love. Right now the timing is perfect because we’re writing the webinar and putting together the website. So if they want to do that they can just contact us at our podcast and get on a list, and then once we launch this we can tell them how to access it and there’ll be all this information. We’re just not doing that program. We’re also doing a membership site that goes for the rest of your life that helps you with these issues through every stage of adult development.

Pete Mockaitis
Intriguing. Okay. So, for now, we just find you on your website – Discover Your Talent, Do What You Love – and send a message. And soon you’ll have a whole rollout of all these things, goodies. Okay, cool.

Don Hutcheson
Yes, exactly.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, that’s nifty. So then, when it comes to the personal vision part, it sounds like there’s a lot wrapped up in that. Could you maybe share, for those who are not going to take the time and energy and effort to do the assessment and such, what would you say might be some of the critical tests or maybe questions, indicators, reflection points that help a person really gain a great level of insight into their own personal issue?

Don Hutcheson
Well, that’s a perfect question. The secret, and again my experience of studying this, and this isn’t Don’s point of view, this is Aristotle and Plato and the great psychologists and developmental psychologists and brainiacs that have been studying these issues for decades and decades. I’ve just studied them all and I’ve worked with other people who studied them, too, and our experience with all these years.

The problem is that we don’t know enough about ourselves, as I said earlier. Drucker said most people think they know what they’re good at. They’re usually wrong is my experience. We’re so outer-directed, Pete, that we take so much advice from outside. My dad wanted me to be a dentist, okay, because it was shorter than med school, and I’m 10% structural which I found out in freshman year in college having almost flunked out.

We’re so fear-based, we’re so short term-oriented that we just – this is a hard thing to say – but the reason that 86% of people around the world, according to Gallup’s international survey, don’t find their sweet spot is because we just don’t do our homework. So what we’ve put together is a way for you to just look at yourself that you can do this on your own actually. You can’t do the assessment on your own but there are actual ways to get a lot of that.

If you look at yourself in terms of who you are and how you are in the world, your abilities, and then you think about what you learned, and the experiences you’ve had, and pay attention to what motivates you from the time you were a small child, your interests and passions – and it was always in there, by the way, from the time you were just a little bitty child – to the kind of personal style you have, and the feedback you get from people, and the influences of family – good, bad and indifferent, and it’s a mix of those – what you cherish and hold dear, and then where you are in your… what age you are, all of those factors have to go into – because we go through turning points every six or seven years.

So if you look at all those factors, and there are all kinds of books, What Color Is Your Parachute does a really nice job of. That’s been around since the ‘70s and there are others that are excellent. Not too many actually but that’s sort of the bible of this. If you are willing to do that kind of work, starting ideally when you’re in high school with parents that’ll support you, or if you’re pre-retirement and haven’t done the work yet, if you’ll do it you’ll able to find a level of satisfaction and fulfillment and performance that’s unmatched.

Pete Mockaitis
Alright. Well, Don, it sounds awesome. I want that. That sounds great. So, right here, right now, can you share what might be some of those first action steps or questions to dig into that begin providing this kind of illumination?

Don Hutcheson
When people asks me this, the first thing I say to them is stop, and they always look at me and say, “Well, that’s clever. What do you mean?” And I say, “Well, as you well know, we’re just so caught up.” And I love technology, and I’m on the internet and I’m a big believer in it, but we’re so caught in so many external forces and so outer-directed and so overwhelmed with technology and information that we don’t get quiet.

And if we’re able to do that, Eckhart Tolle had sat on a park bench for a year and a half, we don’t have to do that, but we sure need to take a little bit of time ideally every day, it could be five minutes, it could be during your lunch hour where you’re just hammering on your computer or talking to clients or friends, where you just listen to what percolates up. You pay attention to why it hasn’t been going well in this role you’re in or why it’s been going so blindly well and you only get to do a little piece of it, why you have real success in certain settings and you feel invisible in other settings.

There are just so many parts of this that make up the intricacies of who you are as a spiritual, emotional, physical, intellectual, social being that to think that we can take any assessment, that we can get any kind of coaching, or take some little quick course and figure it out, is delusional. It may take months, it may take a couple of years. But what’s the alternative? Being in that 86% of people who don’t enjoy the work they do?

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. Duly noted. So stopping is the first ingredient, just having some quiet, away from the devices, and some breathing and just sort of observing what shows up for you. What else would you recommend?

Don Hutcheson
Well, thank you for repeating that because I left off the second most important part, which is in my experience journaling is about as good as it gets. And I don’t mean you have to become Ernest Hemingway or Sylvia Plath. If you take out a notebook, some notebook, a spiral-bound notebook, and if you can just, maybe it’s at your office when you get in the morning, or by your desk, by your bedside at night, and if you could just take, it doesn’t matter, Pete, if it’s five minutes, three minutes, and if you could just, every day if you can, just jot down an impression, jot down a feeling, jot down an insight, jot down a blissful moment, a conflict, an anxiety-ridden period of time.

And if you could just jot those down, related to your work and your relationships, and then take a look at them every few weeks or every month, it’s amazing what comes up. It’s amazing what comes up. Because, again, we’re so outer-directed and short term-oriented and so logic-driven that we don’t let our, for lack of a better expression, our being-ness come into its own. And, as I said at the end of each podcast, it’s in there. It’s in our DNA. We know spiritually, emotionally, intellectually, physically, we know who we are and what we’re supposed to do but there’s so much chatter that it’s very hard for that to come to light.

Pete Mockaitis
Alright. So the journaling, these items are inner-directed. I think that’s a nice key there. So I might have an insight about fixing our garage door.

Don Hutcheson
Yes, yes.

Pete Mockaitis
That’s not what you mean though.

Don Hutcheson
Yes, it is.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay.

Don Hutcheson
It’s precisely what I mean. If you fix the garage door and you come home from a day of doing all the things you do with the wonderful business you got here, and you fix the garage door, and you get real quiet and it’s very satisfying and you like taking apart the bolts and you like doing all this, that’s going to tell you a little something. That’s going to tell you something.

Or if you’re like my father was, and he was always taking apart things but he was so non-structural that he couldn’t put them back together because he’s not structural. All I could do, one time in one of my careers as an ad guy, I had a really beautiful car that had all these functions, and it would probably do 25 or 30 things. I knew how to turn on the ignition. That’s all I cared about. And my partners who had a different kind of background, they could make all the other things work, and I didn’t care.

So the reason I mentioned the garage door, you know, somebody comes home from work as a lawyer or a psychologist or a sales rep or a nurse, and they really have great joy taking apart the bicycle that their child had a broken pedal on, okay, what does that tell you? It means that there’s a structural side of you that engineers and all kinds of other folks have that you might want to just give vet with a hobby. Or you might take on those projects, if you’re in a marketing firm that have to do with companies that has structural products because you’re going to understand them which will help the targeted audience how to use them. Does that make sense?

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, I hear you. Now you used structural as a construct – structural construct – a number of times in terms of being high or low on it. I have a feeling you’ve got a framework in mind where there are numerous such constructs in which you might be high or low. Could you lay those out for us?

Don Hutcheson
Well, there are about 20 of them.

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, wow.

Don Hutcheson
It’s everything from, and this is, again, what started at General Electric. This engineer was asked, this Harvard-educated engineer was asked at General Electric, “Okay, who’s going to make the best line worker that puts these products together? And who’s going to make the best marketing salesperson who persuades clients to buy GE? And who’s going to be a manager that can manage process?” And on and on and on. You name it, there were just hundreds of roles. And a pretty daunting challenge, right? “How in the blazes do I know?”

Well, he figured out by putting together, over a period of a couple of years, these things called work samples where if you are a line worker you were able to use your hands, you’re able to pick up things with tweezers, you’re able to do these minute details, or you were able to see things in three dimension. That’s the spatial relations thing I was talking about, why you could fix the garage door, or why you could fix your child’s bicycle, or why I couldn’t be a dentist because I’m not structural.

And so he put together all these things and they just kept perfecting them over time, and over time, and over time. And, just like I said, over a million people have been through it, and probably there’d be tens of millions, that they’re a research foundation and they just sort of grow with their own pace. And we got access to it and bought the rights to it and put it on a computer. So, now, instead of taking seven hours, it takes three hours but you get to the exact same results with the exact same validity.

Pete Mockaitis
Intriguing. Intriguing. Well, so then, could you maybe give us – I know 20 does sound like a lot but I’m down if you are – to maybe give us a 15-second teaser just for us to maybe chew on and think about it a little bit, like, “Oh, hey, structure. Okay. I could see high, I could see low, I could see medium just based on me thinking about experience and activities”? Could you indulge us with the 10 to 15-second definition of each of these?

Don Hutcheson
Well, I can’t talk about all of them but I can talk just for a second. Structural, for example, we’ve all seen Legos, right? Wiggly blocks. Okay. So if you take an image and you have an ill-shaped wiggly block with a little extra tweak at the end for another wiggly block, and you put this picture here, and next to it are five other pictures. By the way, it’s key to say here, Pete, that all these are timed, because if you had unlimited time you could figure out a whole lot of this. Well, you don’t. You have 12 seconds or whatever it is.

So you say, “Okay, here’s an image of this wiggly block. Now here are five more. Which one is it, because they’re all put in different positions?” If you have spatial relations visualization, bink! You see it in a second. If you’re like me and you don’t, you can’t see it in 30 seconds because your mind doesn’t grasp that visually. And it’s the same for different kinds of logic.

There’s a thing called concept organization, so you get a series of words, and maybe it’s farm and apples and cherries and sandwich and mayonnaise, and all these words just spread across the page.

So you’d look at those words but you put them together in a logical order in a matter of nanoseconds, and that’s what lawyers need, that’s what all kinds of different logical thinkers need. So you take that example and they go on and became increasingly complex. And if you score high in that, that’s literally how your brain engages the world.

I coach lawyers and had a law magazine. The reason that lawyers are so effective is that most of them are high in this, and the reason that their job is crazy oftentimes, and I have a lot of friends who are lawyers, is because they’re so high in this. They present everything in a linear logical way, and you say, “I don’t need you to tell me every little detail. Just give me the end result.” Well, they’ve got to lay it out, and it’s a great asset to them when they’re trying a case or solving a corporate problem.

Pete Mockaitis
Alright. Thank you. Okay. So in order to get after this, you can take a big old assessment, you can stop, you can percolate, you can ponder, you can journal. What might be some other key indicators or strategies to go after in generating some extra insight?

Don Hutcheson
Well, one of the greatest strategies is talking to people that are around you. It can be family, you’ve got to be careful. There’s a lot of superchargers there with family – good, bad and indifferent. But still. Just get feedback from the people you work with, from the people that you report to, from the people that report to you, from your clients, from people that you run across in life.

And if you have a good trusting relationship, just say, “Well, listen, I’m going to transition right now. I’ve been in this technical role for a long time, and I’m good at it but I’m sitting in this cubicle, and I’m working on these real dry projects and this research and data, and I miss interaction with people. I miss engagement. I mean, am I good with people? Pete, what do you think?”

And you say, “Don, you’ve never met a stranger, you’re a genuine guy, and you’re articulate and you’re interested in other people, you respect other people. I think you could talk to anybody about anything. So here you are in this cubicle being whatever engineer you are because you went to Georgia Tech and you’re good at that, but sure, yeah, you can do that.”

Or, “Don, hey, I love you, brother, but communication is an empathy and connection, aren’t exactly your sweet spot. You cut to the chase real fast, and you come up with the answers, and you don’t listen very well. If you want to go into something that has more engagement with people I think you might take a course on emotional intelligence, or you might learn why you’re like that, and then decide if there are parts of that you can change or capitalize on.”

Pete Mockaitis
Alright. Asking people. Great tactic. Maybe one more. I’m always pushing. I’m pushing, Don. You got one more approach to get a whole lot of insight?

Don Hutcheson
Yeah, just read your brains out. Just read, read, read. Read whatever fascinates you in whatever area. It can be poetry. I mean, every time I listen to another podcast, and I like so many of them, there are so many good ones, everybody is talking about the latest sales book, a personal development book, or coaching book. Okay, that’s fine. There are some good ideas there. Not too many, frankly. But get out and get in. Well, I’m just being serious.

It’s the same motivational ra-ra-ra stuff. I was born motivated. You probably were too. Most of our listeners, most of your listeners are probably too. I don’t need somebody to get me motivated and fired up with a lot of gobbledygook. I need to know about me and I need to get next to me because it’s in there. So read whatever. Maybe biographies are wonderful. I love biographies. I’ve read biographies from Churchill to Ernest Hemingway to famous actors and actresses. And just see what how people go along in their journey.

We’re pigeonholed so much in our education. I had a liberal arts education. I was lucky that I could, my parents could put me through that, and I think it’s very important to have that. But it’s also being caught in the matrix. It’s still not, in my view, anyway, a broad enough view of the world to see how other people live. Travel, for heaven’s sakes. Travel is an incredible way to broaden your perspective, to go to a different culture and live there for a week or two or three. Or take a semester at sea, or go to another country and study through your college or university or technical school.

Pete Mockaitis
That’s good.

Don Hutcheson
Just be open to the world. You know, I love America. I’m proud to be an American but we don’t own knowledge and wisdom and insights.

Pete Mockaitis
Alright. That’s good. Alright. Well, Don, I also have to ask, before we hear about some of your favorite things, you have interviewed, boy, over 500 folks now for your podcast. Can you share with me just one or two or three of the most striking transformational insights you’ve picked up along the way that made you go, “Whoa!” and it really changed the way you think?

Don Hutcheson
What we see here, and I alluded to them at the start of this interview, is there are literally seven reasons that your listeners, whether they’re wanting to move to the next level or stuck or just want to do something different, there are seven reasons they get stuck. And in 21 seconds I’ll tell you what they are.

Pete Mockaitis
Do it.

Don Hutcheson
We don’t know ourselves. We don’t know ourselves. We simply don’t. We don’t have self-awareness about ourselves, and there are ways to understand that. We look outside. We get so much advice from family, coaches, friends, allies, bosses, HR managers that we just don’t listen to ourselves. Fear is the biggie that’s what we hear. Seventy-five percent of our guests talk about fear. Hello, it’s a complicated world. Change is hard. We have responsibilities.

We don’t do research. I did a law magazine for five years. It was about personal development. I can’t tell you know many lawyers I interviewed that never had interviewed a lawyer before they headed off to law school, or a judge, or a mediator. Can you imagine? And it’s the same with all these other professions.

So we start in the middle instead of at the beginning, and the middle is your “why.” Why is very important but can’t even touch your “who.” If you don’t know your “who” it’s hopeless. The tools we have out there have – and I’m a marketing guy, right? The tools are one-trick ponies. As great as this assessment is that I’m talking about, it’s only a starting point. It’s the best one I’ve ever seen. But if you just take one of those assessments and then do a little coaching and think you’re going to really have any insight, you’re not.

And, finally, and maybe this is seminal as understanding who you are, we don’t trust our instincts. We don’t trust our instincts. Einstein said logic is a vital tool, an essential tool – I’m paraphrasing – and our intuition is a sacred gift. We live in a society that worships at the altar of the tool and disregards the gift. I think logic is vital. I think our brain is just as important part of obviously who we are but it’s not all of who we are. It’s not where our being-ness, our soul, our higher purpose is. That’s in our heart and our gut and our whole being. It’s not just a logic that resides in our brain.

Einstein went on to say, “I never came upon one of my discoveries through the process of rational thinking.” You can’t. It’s a computer. Your brain is a computer. So all the engineers and mathematicians out there are just choking on their Diet Coke. So sorry but when you came up with that new equation you didn’t come up with it because you have 145 IQ and you’re logical. You gathered all the facts and then you had to – and I’m not a neuroscientist, I don’t pretend I know how to articulate this perfectly well at all. But it comes out of all of that stored information and out of your subconscious and all the experience you have. That’s where the ideas come from. Not out of this linear logical process.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. Understood. Well, Don, tell me, anything else you want to make sure to mention before we shift gears and talk about some of your favorite things?

Don Hutcheson
Just be gentle with yourself, be good to yourself. Honor yourself. Just honor yourself and know that the answer is inside. It’s there. You were born with it, you will die with it, and the extent to which you use it is really up to you and your own courage and ability to face fears and overcome those seven obstacles I said. And you can absolutely do it, 100%.

Pete Mockaitis
Alright. Excellent. Well, now, Don, could you share with us a favorite quote, something you find inspiring?

Don Hutcheson
Raymond Carver lived from 1938 to 1988, a famous short storywriter that I’m sure you know, and came up in really humble beginnings. He said, “And did you get what you wanted from this life? I did.” And from what I read, those were literally the last words that he uttered before he died. So I wanted to be able to say that too. So far I’m not close to dying, I hope. But so far I’m trying my best every day to live that life.

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, beautiful. Thank you. And how about a favorite book?

Don Hutcheson
I have two. The Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle that came out in 2001, which is all about consciousness, which is about stopping and being with yourself. And the other came out in 2005 by Po Bronson, What Should I Do With My Life? Where this genius, Po Bronson, who I need to have on my show, by the way, he interviews hundreds of people, like we do on our podcast, but he goes and stays with them and learns their stories. And he’s put down, I think, as many as 60 or 70 in this book, but you just get an insight into people’s journeys, like we feel on the podcast, in written form, and it is just absolutely brilliant.

Pete Mockaitis
Thank you. And how about a favorite tool?

Don Hutcheson
The only tool I use are spiral-bound notebooks with a rolling Pentel writers. So I get away from, I know it sounds wacky, but I’ve got top-of-the-line MacBook Pro, I use everything, but I just really like to be tactile with the journaling I do, and the notes I do, and the strategizing I do. I just like to write things down. I still like the kinesthetic part of that.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay.

Don Hutcheson
I work in 45-minute increments. We’ve had so many organizational consultants on this show on our Friday expert interview, amazing people, really. And I realized I was just working and then wandering off. I work for an hour and a half and wander off for 30 minutes or something. So since talking about a year ago to one of these particular wizards, I started working in 45-minute increments, and just working really focused, turning off any other distractions, email or social media.

And at the end of 45 minutes, I work out for about 10 minutes on about at least seven hours a day. I do 50 pushups, I do planks, I do yoga poses, and so I end up getting about an hour of workout in. But I don’t do the one thing that scientists are now telling us is worse than, or as bad as smoking, I just don’t stay seated in my chair. I have a standup desk, and every 45 minutes I work out for eight to 10 minutes.

Pete Mockaitis
And so in that eight to 10 minutes is the whole shebang with the pushups, the planks and the yoga poses.

Don Hutcheson
Yeah, yeah, it’s the whole thing. I’ve worked out for four years, and I had back surgery at about a year ago and luckily it wasn’t too bad. So I haven’t been able to go to the gym and do all the squats and everything I used to do. So I do curls and I do flies and just a handful of things, and then I do these pushups and planks and yoga poses, and it works. It keeps my muscles toned but I also do yoga poses. And I get in most every day with a sun shiny day, I get in a 30-minute walk because that’s important and I get my vitamin D.

Pete Mockaitis
Alright. Thank you. And is there a particular nugget that you share that really seems to connect and resonate with your folks?

Don Hutcheson
Well, honestly, I think it’s the close of the podcast. I mean, it came out of the book Don’t Waste Your Talent, and I think, Pete, when I say to people that every one of us is born with innate talents and it’s in your DNA and you can find it, they know that’s true. And if they don’t know that’s true then they take, succor in the fact that they’d like to find that out and they can explore.

Pete Mockaitis
Alright. And, Don, if folks want to learn more or get in touch, where would you point them?

Don Hutcheson
They can go to DiscoverYourTalentPodcast.com and there’s a contact page, and they can just write us there. They can find me on LinkedIn at Don Hutcheson, DYT Career Podcast, and I’ve got thousands of friends on LinkedIn. Yeah, would love to connect with them and get to know them.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. And, Don, do you have a final challenge or call to action for those seeking to be awesome at their jobs?

Don Hutcheson
Yes. Stop.

Pete Mockaitis
Alright.

Don Hutcheson
Stop. Stop. Just don’t settle. Stop and know that you can change it. You can absolutely change. I mean, we’ve all got problems. We got so many people on the show that have overcome deathly injuries or diseases or bad family of origin stories, I mean, just amazing people, almost 600 now that have actually been recorded. And I’m just humbled every interview with what people are able to do with their courage and wisdom.

Pete Mockaitis
Thank you. Well, Don, this has been enriching and a lot of fun. Thank you for sharing. I’m excited to dig into your stuff when it’s all up and ready to go so we’ll definitely link that in the show notes and update that as you’re updating. So let us know when it’s up and out, and good luck doing it.

Don Hutcheson
I am so delighted with this interview and I’m so tickled to know you and all the great work you’re doing with the podcast and all your consulting. You’re just doing very, very groundbreaking work and it’s a pleasure to know you. Thank you, Pete.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, thank you.

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