100: “Going there” with (Uncle!) Topper Steinman

Pete Mockaitis
Topper, thanks so much for appearing here on the How to be Awesome at Your Job podcast.

Topper Steinman
Pete, it’s great to be with you.  I’m honored, humbled and I feel like I’m lacking when I look at all of the people you’ve had on this.  So it’s a great community that I’m a part of, so glad to join you.

Pete Mockaitis
Thank you.  You are far from lacking; indeed you’re closest by bloodline of all guests.

Topper Steinman
Look out!  I think I am.  I looked to see if there were any last names of Mockaitis or Steinman and there aren’t, so there you go.

Pete Mockaitis
Now speaking of names, I think folks asked me a number of times when I mentioned you, “Topper – is that his real name?  What’s going on there?”

Topper Steinman
And that’s a show in and of itself.  That’s a whole other podcast if I explain that, so Othmar stays out of this show.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay, can do.  So, if we can give it one minute – what’s the origin of Topper, if I may?

Topper Steinman
Well, my real name, as my great nephew, as in my nephew who is great, Pete knows, is Othmar.  And that’s a hand-me-down from my dad and it’s kind of like a boy named Sue – I suffer, you suffer.  And so they didn’t want to hang that title on me I think through school and have that awkward present when they try to pronounce Othmar.  You can do it if you gargle and do something else at the same time.
So I used to watch this show, which you have to be over, I don’t know, 60 to understand it, that was on television; and I used to glue to it and it had a dog and Topper was on the show and it was a ghost.  And then I had bright red hair when I had hair and now you know I don’t.  So when I watched the show and I had the hair they coined that cute little nickname and I tell people, “That’s nice if you’re 3, or a dog.”  You should grow up and grow out of it, and I never did.  So there goes Topper and there goes Othmar.  Is that a minute?  Did I cover my…

Pete Mockaitis
It’s great.

Topper Steinman
Okay.  So that’s the rest of the story, and I’ve stayed with it for some odd reason and it doesn’t make me sound real professional, but that’s okay.

Pete Mockaitis
That’s fun.  Well, I think there’s so many things that we could chat about, and maybe we’ll have to have a repeat appearance, but what’s really high on my mind based on a lot of conversations I’ve had with some guests as well as listeners is a real strength of yours that… This will be maybe longer setup, but I’ll do a couple of vignettes.  I remember there was one occasion, I think it was on a Christmas or so, you just sort of out of the blue in your own interest just said, “Hey now you two…”, and you point to me and my brother Dave and you said, “Now you two are both quite spiritual, you feel connected, but you’ve taken very different routes with that, haven’t you?”
So, in the middle of a family gathering you just highlighted, “Oh, let’s talk about the religious comparisons and contrasts between brothers.”
And then after the election you sort of started to chat about that, and reactions and responses.  And there are other occasions, but what’s so unique and wonderful about you is that touchy topics like religion and politics, you seem to just cheerfully, courageously go there like, “Hey, this might be kind of fun to talk about”, as opposed to being terrified like most of us.  So, how is this possible for you?

Topper Steinman
Well, that’s the drunken uncle at the Thanksgiving table.  Well, first of all, that’s kind of you to frame it that way and that you have been appreciative of that.  I’m sure that some other folks would climb under a table as they’ve been known to do when I would do that.  And I don’t know what that’s about, other than I’m incredibly curious, I really value the human spirit and the makeup of what makes people who they are.  You know I love you and your brother dearly, and we have two kids, as you know, of our own – your cousins, and they are very different people also.  And so, I don’t know, just talking about the weather and chatting up what you’re going to do next Wednesday are interesting table conversations, and yet after a while I nod off, so to keep me awake I have to keep things alive and moving.
And I just take some chances with people, I guess, in that regard and I really do it I hope respectfully and with a little bit of a sense of humor, which I think needs to be attached, and just a genuine interest in what makes people tick, what is it about folks that makes them move the way they do and speak the way they speak and act the way they act, without sounding too weird about that.  And whether that happens at Thanksgiving or Christmas or on Wednesday, I don’t know, and I don’t even know if I answered your question, but that would be a brief response to what you’re asking.

Pete Mockaitis
Oh no, I think we’re getting there.  Okay so, the curiosity, the human spirit, the genuine interest.  And I guess in some ways I’m thinking if listeners think, “I want that” – I think part of it’s maybe just sort of innate natural, “Why do you like music?  Why do you like sports?”  “I don’t know, I just think they’re awesome.”  But could you maybe take us deeper into your thought process a little bit there, like why do you find it fascinating, or what sorts of questions are rolling around in your head that gets you all the more drawn in and intrigued?

Topper Steinman
Well, this is going to be a real backward answer.  So I can fix nothing.  When you give me a thing to play with, I have no clue how to put it together or take it apart.  The human spirit for whatever reason, Pete, has always moved me and my mind has always gravitated to what makes people tick – ergo this Master’s degree I’ve got in Counseling and paying attention to theorists.  I don’t know, I’ll talk about them later, but some people…
So the human spirit has always been something that seems to have worked in my brain and I guess my genetic makeup goes to that.  And I used to think back in the days after I got my Master’s in my early 20s in Counseling that life was 90% nurture and 10% nature.  So I was convinced that all of this can be trained into people and we can all then live happily ever after, of course, can’t we?  Well, I learned that that’s not quite the case, and I think now that probably it’s equal doses of nature and nurture that moves us.
But what still moves me is more nurture than nature.  And I don’t know that any of this will make sense either, but I have always had a curiosity about how people are, how they act, and how their wheelhouses wheel, because my wheelhouse attached to things never work.  And so I’ve got lots of mind open to people.  And can others be so trained and would other want to be so trained or so thoughtful… I don’t even know if it’s thoughtful, I really don’t know that.  But that kind of condition has always moved me to think and to gravitate to people and gravitate to diversity in people.
And that’s not always been a strength, because I grew up in a fairly racist environment, a small town, and to this day where we have two beautiful bi-racial grandchildren and a beautiful African-American son in law and our daughter who happens to be Caucasian like her mother and I, and it continues to move me in this direction of, so what does move us all?  And I think we’re all moved by that notion of wanting to be loved and accepted and appreciated, and at times confronted and dealt with a little friction, and so there you go.

Pete Mockaitis
That’s good.  And so, when you talk about confronted and a little bit of friction, I guess I’m thinking, what are some of, I don’t know, maybe the rules of engagement like, “Hey, the boss gave an idea I think is terrible, but I’m a little scared to just say, ‘Hey Boss, you’re a moron.’”  You’re not going to say it that way anyway, but we’re a little scared to enter into some of the friction, some of the conflict.  And so, do you have maybe some mindsets or rules of engagement that you call upon to keep things feeling okay and from people going into a panic?

Topper Steinman
Yeah, and great questions.  And my thought would be that “You’re a moron” is probably not the best place to start, you’re right.  See, that’s why you write books, isn’t it, because you’re that insightful, Pete.  But I think that my gurus in this regard would be people like Roger Fisher and William Ury.  They wrote two books – Getting to Yes and Getting Past No, and I would recommend those to listeners too, if you’re finding yourself in situations where you both want to get to “Yes” in a business or economic or political or whatever realm you’re in, and getting past “No”, ’cause not everybody wants to get to “Yes”.  So those two books have been seminal to me in my thought process about what I’ve done.
I think in the answer to your question, a lot of it becomes relational.  So if you’re just starting at your job and you think your boss is not real smart, I probably wouldn’t use that on day two, “I don’t think you’re real smart.”  So I think that first of all I’d develop a relationship, I’d try to get to know the person, I’d try to get to understand from whence they’re coming, I’d try to ask questions, I’d try to educate myself, I’d try to first look in the mirror and see what parts of this are about me, not so much about what a fool they are.
And months or weeks or whenever the timing is right, and you’re about to blow it – and I don’t think you want to blow the gasket or get to that point – then I think I’d do it by way of privacy.  I always think that a confrontation works best the more private it can be.  I’d probably do it with some thought to, without sounding manipulative about it, but some thought to affirming, “I hope you know that I like working here.  I hope you know that I appreciate the honesty that you bring to meetings.  And there’s two things that concern me, and if you don’t mind if I could spend 15 minutes with you talking about those two, when would be a good time?”
So I think that engaging in that form of respect rather than… And I probably would be real careful about what I would tweet to my colleagues and what I would email to my colleagues about this stuff, and I think especially as alive as social media is now that’s something that if I were young, and I’m not – closing in on 70 years old, so I don’t have to play that game, and I don’t know if it’s a game or not, but play that as much as other people do.
But I’d probably be real careful about what I’d put in public in these kinds of regards.  And then I would start with “I” – “I’m concerned about when I bring up an idea in a meeting it seems to me like it gets dismissed pretty frequently or pretty easily.  I like to think I bring some credibility, so can you help me understand what that’s about, when I bring up something and it gets dismissed what seems to me like to be pretty quickly?”
So the other way to say that is, “So why are you always picking on me?”  And I never think that gets very far.  So the old “You, you, you” I think gets to be a little bit confrontive and too friction-full, and coming from your own sense of “I appreciate” or “I get frustrated” or whatever, and those are tactics that lots of people know that may sound phony and artificial, but to me they’re real and if you can’t own that, then I would suggest you not do that.  I don’t know if that’s helpful or not.

Pete Mockaitis
Absolutely.  No, I like it.

Topper Steinman
I’ve done a lot of workshops across the country – I know you know this, Pete – and they’ve been on all the way from conflict resolution to creating peaceable schools – Dick Bodine and Donna Crawford, advocates and gurus of mine in the field locally. But the one workshop that I never was able to pull off, and this is the one I’d love to do if I ever got to the point where I could do it, and I’m fading away and I’m not doing as much, would be a workshop on sincerity.
And if I could teach people how to be genuine and sincere… We used to use a quote in trainings, and the quote was, “Sincerity may find its own technique; it’s sometimes tough for technique to find sincerity.”  I think it’s a powerful quote.  So if I trained people in how to listen and people listened artificially with my training methods, I think the artificial reality comes through and the phoniness comes through.  So I guess I’m saying be you, be genuine, and at the same time it’s probably a good idea to use some strategies or processes that are humanly respectful, rather than just coming at people and trying to get them to change to your point of view.

Pete Mockaitis
Yes, and that is very intriguing.  Now I’m thinking about the quote – what is it – “If you can fake sincerity then you’ve really got it made.”  Is that another quote?

Topper Steinman
Yeah.  Well, frankly, I’ve never heard that one, but I kind of like that, so maybe that’s the workshop I should be doing.  And maybe that’s what I did for a living, I don’t know.

Pete Mockaitis
I think it might’ve been Mark Twain or something, but could you dig into that a little bit more, when you talk about sincerity.  And so, I guess in some ways that sounds easy – hey, you’ve just got to be you.

Topper Steinman
Yeah, right.

Pete Mockaitis
But in practice it’s not so much.  What do you think is getting in the way and what are some ways to get past those things?

Topper Steinman
Yeah, and without saying to your audience, “We should all go into 6 months of psychotherapy”, I think that some internal looks are important to do.  What am I made of?  What makes me tick?  What pushes my buttons?  I think those internal looks are frequently important looks to make and to take.  And in light of that I think you start to find what moves your core, what’s your inner self about.  ‘Cause that’s what you bounce off of other people when you’re in these moments of where you are frustrated with what’s going on at work or you’re even pleased with what’s going on at work.  So I’d say first of all take a look inside of you.
And then secondly I would do that – and how cliché-ish is this – watch the judging the book by its cover and watch the quick judgments that are made.  I don’t know, some of this stuff says we get to know people in the first seven seconds, you make your first impression.  And salespeople and car salesmen and insurance people do this all the time, and I think there’s a lot of truth to that.  But I’d be weary of that, I’d be careful about judging people too quickly.
And then I’d slide into what I said before, I’d slide into trying to develop some relationship with them that is meaningful, whether it’s a surface relationship ’cause that’s all you want to do, or a relationship that you want to check on a more professional or deep level or personal level, see what happens with that.  That’s about as far-field of an answer to your question as I could get.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay.  That’s good, thank you.  And now I want to hear a little bit… So you talk about conflict and entering those worlds.  I’m thinking about some of your work with National Center for Conflict Resolution Education, you visited some places that have been experiencing conflict in a tragic way, in terms of school shootings and others.  I’d like to hear if you’ve sort of learned a couple of things along the way, looking at conflict in some of its ugliest forms and working with folks in the aftermath there that are applicable to folks having their own conflicts day in, day out at work?

Topper Steinman
Yeah.  It’s an interesting… I was in a place in the late 90s called Jonesboro, Arkansas, and a 12 and a 13-year old wreaked havoc on a middle school, Westside Middle School in Jonesboro on one tragic April day and took the lives of 6 young people and an educator.  And no one… I went down there in the summer to try to help that community heal from that sort of thing with some colleagues of mine – Fred Shrump and Dick Bodine and Donna Crawford, who I mentioned.  And those are incredibly raw experiences and moved me greatly at the time and still move me today, when you see people wreaking and wrecking form that sort of violence.  And I think there it’s more important to be a support, a listener, a hugger, if that’s your nature, a source of pain that you don’t pretend to understand and yet you’re there with them.  And then in addition to that some ways how can we move on?
There’s a facilitative technique that I believe a lot in, Pete, that’s got three parts to it – what; so what; now what?  And the “what” of Jonesboro was that 7 people died and the community suffered immeasurably.  The “so what” was that people were hurt and angry and frightened and sad.  And staying at those two levels, which is something I think we do whether it’s the crisis of Jonesboro or Columbine or some of the present days with what has happened in our present-day culture of these same elements, are very different of course than your workplace conflicts, but I think we can easily stay stuck in “what” and “so what” and we don’t move to “now what”.
So part of what I challenge myself to do in places like Jonesboro is, so now what are we going to do with the immeasurable pain that we’re in?  Or now what am I going to do that I’ve got this boss who I think is being real nasty to me and I’m not sure that I know what to do with this.  So I think that one of my strengths is in identifying and appreciating the “what” and the “so what”, and at the same time in a corner of my brain keeping in mind “Now what am I going to do?” and “Now what are you going to do with what you’re experiencing?”
And I don’t want to sound dismissive, but I think that that’s an arena that we don’t spend enough time in.  And I don’t think social media helps us do that at all; we stay stuck in the cyber-bullying and the “what” and the “so what” and “while you’re at this” and “while you’re at that”.  And we don’t move on to the “Now what are we going to do?” field enough.  And there I’ve got some ideas, but I’ll share those with you as you begin to be more curious about them I guess.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, I’m curious now!  Let’s hear it.

Topper Steinman
Well, that to me is the Fisher – Ury stuff I talked about earlier.  And they have 4 principles in the Getting to Yes and Getting Past No books that I referenced, Pete, and their 4 principles very crudely and very quickly and not in the depth that I’d like to share them.

Principle 1 is ,“Separate the people from the problem.”  Don’t make issues about what idiots people are.  The Japanese have a great 6-word sentence: “Fix the problem, not the blame.”  And I think in America we do a lot of blame-fixing.  And Fisher and Ury would try to make us think more about the issues than about what fools people are in the issues.  And of course there’s fools, and I might be one of them in issues on occasion, but that would be their first principle.
Their second one is, “Focus on interests, not positions.”  And we just watched a political… And I don’t care what frame you’re in – Democrat, Republican, Libertarian, neutral, whatever it was, or, “I’m never going to vote again because I can’t vote for either of those people.”  But we get stuck in positions that there is no global warming; yes, of course there’s global warming, there is no climate, yes of course there is climate, there is no economic, yes of course there is economic… And then it’s Obama’s fault or it’s going to be Trump’s fault or it was Nixon’s fault or it was Bush’s fault.
And we spend an awful lot of time on positional bargaining rather than interest-based work, which is we all actually want a climate that works, we want an economy that works, we want a politic that works.  So how can we best get there?  And rather than go stuck back in our positions, can we invent options?  That’s step 3 – “Can we invent options for mutual gains?”  So knowing that we may come at this differently, what kinds of things can we… And that’s that old brainstorming that a lot of us know how to do and do it non-judgmentally, and I know this gets to be a little bit of psycho-babble here, but throw out some options that would help us.
And then the fourth criteria for them is, “Insist on using objective criteria when we’re going to resolve what it is we’re going to do”, so that it turns out fair for us and doesn’t turn out where somebody’s getting ripped off, or the bus has run over you, or somebody’s playing martyr to the cause.  So those are their principles – separate the people from the problem, focus on interests not positions, create options, and then make sure that what we’re doing is objective and fair.  And it sounds simple in theory and it’s incredibly difficult to do in practice, as you know all too well.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, thank you.  That is great.  And sometimes you have been called upon to do just that – you are the facilitator.  We’ve got a whole lot of mess and muck and ire built up amongst ourselves, and so Topper’s going to come in and fix it all.

Topper Steinman
Is that where I put on your Superman cape?  I don’t know if your audience knows you have worn a Superman cape.  I don’t know if they know this or not.

Pete Mockaitis
I’m sure it will come up again, for Halloween or so.

Topper Steinman
Right.  Yeah, so, obviously the first error in your thinking there is, “Topper will come in and fix it all.”  So yeah, I would never pretend to come in and fix anybody’s muck and stuff.  I think their muck and their stuff is very real and I think the first thing we need to do is honor that and suggest that it’s very real and begin to get them to put that in the frame of what are the top 3 or 4 things that you think that you’re struggling with the most.  And this would be good information, I think, for a 25 or 26-year-old to think about – not just what’s the muck and the mess, but when it’s working what’s going on.
‘Cause I think sometimes we come at this conflict from a deficit aspect too much, and if we could begin to reframe that to say, “When it’s working… Is it ever working?”  “Yeah, it works.”  “What’s working?”  “Well, when we’re away from each other it seems to work okay.”  “And what else is working?”  “Well, when we text or stay off of social media with our muck and our mess, that seems to work.”  “Okay, when else is it working?”  “We come in in the morning and people happen to smile or be, I don’t know, just saying ‘Good morning’, it seems to work.”  Okay well, let’s say when you’re in a meeting.  Well, when people aren’t just  glum all the time.  And so what can we do to build on that?  So I don’t know if I’m making sense, but I think we need to build on assets as much as we need to deal with deficits.

Pete Mockaitis
That’s really good, that’s really good.  And now I’m thinking a little bit tactically, like you are the facilitator.  They have hired; they do have expectations that are over the top in terms of what heroism you’ll be able to deliver for them.  But I’d love to hear some of your best practices for keeping your cool and facilitating and engaging in those conversations without having blow ups in a bad way.

Topper Steinman
Sure.  Well, there’s a couple of things to consider here.  One is when you’re a third-party person.  This next thing I’m going to mention I think is easier to do then when you’re just in a two-party negotiation that could be friction-full and nasty. The third party person like me, I can help establish some ground rules.  And some of mine would be things like, “So, can we all agree to whatever happens in here stays in here?  It’s private.  Can we all agree that we’ll be respectful of people’s time?  Can we all agree that we’ll listen to each other?”  To the point maybe of even saying back what you just heard the person maybe that you disagree with say.  “And could we all agree to work toward some resolution while knowing there’s a lot on the table that bothers us?  Could we all agree to work toward some resolution?”
If you can set a framework for some of that to go on, you’re going to be light years ahead than if you were to go into a meeting and say, from my point of view, “So what’s going on?”  And then the darts start flying and the stuff starts going and then before you know it you’re in the middle of the muck and the mess and you’re like, “Wait, wait, John, just slow down.  Hang on.”  “No, I’m not hanging on.”  And then you get the emotions and the perceptions and by then you’re right in the middle of it and you’ve probably lost the battle to begin with.
So I think the first thing to do is to set some ground rules, and that would include negotiating as a two-party person: “Can we talk with each other and can we try to get this out in a way that we both have a chance to say something and then listen to each other a little bit?  And could we work toward getting after it in a way that’s not going to make either of us get ugly about it?”  I don’t know, you set those kinds of things up.  So I think that can be done first of all.
And then I think it’s important to hear each other’s points of view.  And the third thing I think, so you get the points of view out on the table, then I think it’s a pivotal question that’s talked about a lot in negotiation and mediation, is, “So what do you want to have happen out of this?  And why do you want to have that happen?”  And not very many people say, “Well, I’d like to stay ugly, and I’d like to stay bothered, and I’d like to stay frustrated.”  Most people want to get this resolved and get things – whatever the thing is – get it worked out.
And then you begin to build a framework for how you’re going to go about doing that.  And that gets back to that 4-step of thinking about all the different things we could do and what do you think would be fairest for you all to do here, and then what could you all agree to one or two things that we could do between now and next week when we come back together and we didn’t just cure cancer or solve world hunger, but maybe we agreed if we have something to say about each other, we’ll say it to each other and not outside of each other or not on social media.

Pete Mockaitis
Excellent, thank you.  Well, Topper, you tell me – is there anything else within these areas you want to make sure that you say before we shift gears and hear about a couple of your favorite things?

Topper Steinman
I always think… Well, two things: One, I think a sense of humor – if you’ve got some light side of you that can come out, matters and it counts and, I don’t know, I grew up in the area where my glass was more half-full than half-empty, so I think if you come into this victim-like and martyr-like, whatever your friction is, you’ll probably stay victim and martyr-like.
In the conflict resolution work I did, Pete, I used to use these principles, but I’d say to people some people you meet within life, nothing you do will get in their way.  Conflict is their nature and I think you have to come to grips with that at some point, that hopefully you’re not one of those people and hopefully you’re not married to that person.  I happen to not be, so I’ve got a beautiful, lovely wife who is my ground plug.  So those three things – humor, coming at it with a glass that’s half-full, and if you’re playing victim and martyr in life – I don’t mean this crassy – but go get some help, because you’re not going to get very far ’cause there’s a lot of things to be victimized and martyred about.  And so, those would be three things I’d end on.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay, thank you.

Topper Steinman
How upbeat was that?

Pete Mockaitis
Yeah.

Topper Steinman
Don’t be a victim and a martyr.  Just dust yourself back off and get back in the game.

Pete Mockaitis
It’s funny you say that though.  I was chatting with someone who said, “Oh, Topper Steinman’s your uncle?  You know what?  He just has this limitless cheerfulness. And I don’t have that.  I would like to, but I guess I don’t.”

Topper Steinman
And I think we all don’t bring the same skill set, so thank God we’ve got people that aren’t like me and that are in your business and that are grounded and that are rational and that can think pragmatically and don’t think “pie in the sky” all time.  And then what a beautiful mosaic we all create, so thank God we’re not all coming at it from this angle.  So I think the curmudgeon and the victim and the whatever are going to be a part of a social set.  That’s what we know about group psychology, is that people are going to take on those roles, so there you go.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay.  So now could you share with us a favorite quote?  Something you find inspiring?

Topper Steinman
Well, a couple of things probably move me. One is the thought that it’s not so much what happens to you but what you do with what happens to you that counts.  So that would be one.  And these are coming off of my locker room, it’s not the fight in the dog…  But the other one would probably be…
I use this a lot with young people; I’ve done audiences with young people where I do a thing called SOS which is “Believe in.”  And it’s based on believe in and respect yourself, believe in and respect others, believe in and respect that you can make it, construct a difference in the stuff of life.  So I used to do a lot of workshops all over the place about that, but I’ve often told them, “If you think that you can or you think that you can’t, you’re probably right.”  So I think the mindset that you do bring into stuff has a lot to do with where we go to.  So those would be a couple of quotes off my locker room that I’d probably share with you.

Pete Mockaitis
Thank you.  And how about a favorite study or experiment or a research piece that you find interesting?

Topper Steinman
Well, I always find interesting the work that I mentioned by Fisher and Ury.  I always find some of my colleagues, the Bodines and Crawfords that I mentioned, I always find William Glasser’s work… I grew up with people like, gosh, Fritz Perls and Albert Ellis, and so any pieces that would deal with some of their work would be meaningful to me and I think meaningful to others in the realm of psychology.  So I don’t know that there’d be any one particular piece that’s struck me a lot.
The old Hawthorne effect, where we dim the lights and stuff went down and we turn the lights back up and manufacturing instruction went up.  I think we’re in charge of our own.  So some of those studies… That German study that was sick where some babies… And you couldn’t get by with this today, thank Heaven, but some babies were hugged and loved and other babies were left alone and they were both fed the same amount, and the hugged and loved babies and nurtured babies survived and the others frankly died.  And so I think stuff like that makes a difference to me and my psyche and that if we could learn to support each other and affirm each other and, like I said, friction each other and just make contact with each other, we’re going to be better off than if we don’t.  So those would stand out in my mind a bit.

Pete Mockaitis
Cool.  And how about a favorite book?

Topper Steinman
Well, growing up… Can I do this developmentally?

Pete Mockaitis
Sure.

Topper Steinman
The first book I ever read that was of any consequence would’ve been Catcher in the Rye.  And I was just struck by Holden Caulfield and he could say those words and be a little bit of a rebel, and I’ve got a little rebel in me, as you know from my dining room tables at Christmas or Thanksgiving.  That one, To Kill a Mockingbird, I recently read a book by Jodi Picoult called The Small Great Things – it’s a powerful study on racism in our country, and it’s a movement that moves me, and I like her stuff and she does great character and human development work.  So those would probably be some books that I would cite.

Pete Mockaitis
And how about a personal practice of yours that’s been really handy, a good habit?

Topper Steinman
Napping.

Pete Mockaitis
Oh yes.  What time and how long?

Topper Steinman
All of the above.  Well, I think humor, I think the connection I have with my wife is a lifesaver for me, the connection I hope I have with my kids and my grandkids is a lifesaver for me, so those human relations matter.  People like yourself and your mom and your dad and Jim and Dave are lifesavers for me.  And then that private moment where I can maybe play a piano a little bit or mess around on the harmonica or think about playing my, I don’t know, my new instrument.  I don’t know, those kind of things all move me, so I try to keep my mind active and keep it moving and keep it energized a bit.  It seems to get me to the next day and then I wake up and I celebrate.

Pete Mockaitis
I love it.  The word is “celebrate”, not “celibate”.

Topper Steinman
Yeah, we could tell that joke now.  Yeah, just take that and run with it.  Well, give me your, and say to your people, ’cause I want to turn this around.  So what’s the cue and the clue that you would give to your listeners that moves you and makes your life work?

Pete Mockaitis
The cue and the clue.  Well, I just got married and that was great.  Yay!

Topper Steinman
And I was able to be at that wedding and Katie is an amazing human being as you are and what a match made in heaven.  That was fun.  Anyway, so keep going.

Pete Mockaitis
Thank you.  I’d say prayer, learning.  I mean the podcast is so fun, just because I get to chat with people that I would just love to chat with anyway, but now there is a benefit to me for talking to you, in terms of exposure and connection to new people.  That’s really just fun – learning and sharing stuff that really helps people, so I think that does really get me fired up.  And then I think just generally having things… I take an interest and maybe too much delight in something just working very well, like when I was coordinating the Speed Dating event, my favorite moment was 3 dates in, everyone is just rotating, it’s like, “Ahhh!  It just works.”  Or at the wedding – everyone’s rocking this dance floor and I’m just chatting with people.  It works.

Topper Steinman
Well, what does not amaze me, but what I was so fascinated by is that the influence that you have in a very short period of time, with your energy, your optimism, your creativity, your unabridged uninhibitedness to just be who you are, moves other people to take risks, I think, that matter a lot.  And the fact, Pete Mockaitis, that you can do that at 33 years of age or whatever it is, is a phenomenal gift, so I continue to hope that you’ll share your gift of you with lots of people through podcasts and Thanksgiving dinners, ’cause I certainly look forward to a lot more with you.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, thank you.  I’m so honored.  Maybe as we move to the conclusion, could you share maybe a favorite parting word or a call to action for those seeking to be awesome at their jobs?

Topper Steinman
Yeah, the parting word I would have would probably be, be you and grow.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay.  Can you elaborate just a little bit?

Topper Steinman
I will.

Pete Mockaitis
Very succinct, which I like, but I’d also like some meat.

Topper Steinman
Yeah.  I think that as you get to know yourself at 25 or 35 or 45 or 55, honor yourself, acknowledge yourself.  You’ve got skeletons in your closet – open your closet up and bring them out and take a look at them and smell them and hang on to them and deal with them and know that they’re there.  And so, honor you, be you.
And we’re not all Topper or Pete or Donald Trump or Barack Obama or whoever our heroes and our GOATs are, we’re not those people; we are who we are, so be you.  And then be open to grow and be open to learn and be open to listening, be open to a podcast, be open to hearing somebody from a different point of view, be open to listening to a Hillary Clinton who you despise and just try to hear what she’s saying some day, or Donald Trump who you can’t stand.  And then just open yourself up to the engagement of that thought and see if out of that anything can come from you, other than just what a fool they are.  And translate that inside out.  So how’s that for a thought?

Pete Mockaitis
That’s excellent.  Thank you.

Topper Steinman
Yes.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, Topper, this has been a blast.  I’ve long known that you’re brilliant and great to chat with, and so now thousands of others do as well.  So I really appreciate you making your podcast debut with me.

Topper Steinman
Well, I’m honored to have done it and I’m humbled to have done it and I can’t think of anyone I’d rather do that with than my nephew Pete Mockaitis.  So thank you for the chance to come on, Pete, I appreciate it.