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Marco Bartolome

Dec 04
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1115: How to Earn and Keep Your Next Promotion with Mark Thompson

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Mark Thompson reveals the principles of readiness that he’s used to help aspiring CEOs get the top job.

You’ll Learn

  1. The one behavior that makes you more CEO-like
  2. Why to take on your boss’ problems
  3. The question that dramatically improves your appeal

About Mark

Mark Thompson is a globally recognized authority on CEO succession, executive readiness, and high-stakes leadership transitions. He has led more than a hundred board-level engagements to prepare C-suite successors to step confidently into enterprise leadership. He is the founding chairman and CEO of the Chief Executive Alliance and the CEO Leadership Plan Review (LPR). Previously, he served as chief executive of the CEO Academy, a SHRM company, in partnership with Wharton and McKinsey.

Earlier in his career, Thompson reported directly to founder Charles “Chuck” Schwab, serving as executive producer of Schwab.com, the first large-scale digital platform for online investing. In 2021, he was ranked by Marshall Goldsmith as the #1 CEO Coach, and in 2023 he was inducted into the Thinkers50 Coaching Legends.

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Mark Thompson Transcript

Pete Mockaitis
Mark, welcome!

Mark Thompson
Hey, great to be here. I love your work.

Pete Mockaitis
Thank you. Well, I love your work. I’m excited to talk about becoming CEO Ready, or just advancement ready, in general. But first I got to hear, you are the guy who calls Marshall Goldsmith regularly, asking him key questions. Tell us about this.

Mark Thompson
I mean, there’s nothing more powerful than to be held accountable about something that is your goal, and yet we don’t follow our own goals. So, we will set up a prompt that will be about, in his case and mine, “Did you do your exercise today? Did you tell your spouse that you love her? Do you make sure that you’re reaching out to your kids? Have you made progress writing the book?” “Oops!” Well, you can only lie about that for so long to a good friend.

So, there’s nothing better than to have kind of that loving critic in your life who is sharing with you the time, the kind of the precious gift of saying, “Hey, I’m going to support you. These are your goals, though, dude, because you need to show up for them.” And so, that’s what we do. We’ve done that for many, many, many years. And people will ask us, “Well, aren’t you guys supposed to be like master coaches?” And it’s like, “Well, it’s called a practice, whether you’re a musician or anything else.”

And so, what is so interesting is how you drift, and we all have that. That’s something we all have in common. So, think about that like personal board of directors or a set of people that you might think about setting up a series of goals that you’ve had for a while, and see if they can help you keep yourself accountable.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, yes, that’s exactly what I asked Marshall. It’s like, so you’re like the Mr. Top Dog coach here and you’re saying you have a person call you every day to say, “Did I do my best to…etc.?” And I thought that was pretty inspiring in terms of we humans can all benefit from some of that.

Mark Thompson
Also I love his framing because it’s not, “Did you accomplish the task of being happy? Did you make sure that all of these things were necessarily done?” It’s really more that life is about making progress, isn’t it, towards your goals? And so, the idea there is “Did I do my best towards this particular objective? And am I making progress?”

I mean, that’s what makes a life worth living, is when you kind of feel like you’re making progress, not that you always have to have the brass ring every day. So, his inspiration really was something that, actually, very few people do, but it’s surprisingly powerful when you know you’re going to get that call.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, it is. Well, right now, I got a buddy who’s trying to lose some weight, and I said, “Hey, I want to try something out here. Maybe this will become a service I offer or build an empire to offer.”

Mark Thompson
Indeed.

Pete Mockaitis
It’s, “Send me a screenshot of your calorie-tracking app every evening when you’re done eating for the day.”

Mark Thompson
Darn.

Pete Mockaitis
Yeah, sure enough, it’s like…

Mark Thompson
Busted!

Pete Mockaitis
Yeah, he knows it’s coming. And so, you know, most days there’s a pretty solid caloric deficit. And so, that’s brick by brick, that’s how you build the thing.

Mark Thompson
It is. And, you know, it’s not about being perfect. It’s about making progress. So, I really admire the idea that, if you can be coachable enough to just take feedback, not on the other person’s goals, but on yours, that’s the thing that’s amazing about it. Marshall and I, for about 700 hours during the pandemic, we had these small groups that got together, and they were at all levels, all incredibly interesting people, highly accomplished actors, celebrities, CEOs, people from all walks of life.

Well, you know, it doesn’t matter whether you’re the most entry-level executive, or you’re a person working in a call center, or a teller at a desk, it is common to all of us to aspire for things that we’d love to accomplish in our lives. And yet, without that accountability partner, we don’t actually make that kind of progress or set aside the steps or time for it.

So, I couldn’t be more excited about the fact that we’re talking about this today because that’s probably the single most effective thing we could do to be even showing up awesomely in our job, is to, let’s say, just for a moment, let’s do a little check in. We’ll do a feed forward, “What could I be doing to make your life easier, boss?”

She or he is being judged by their bosses. It’s hard to feel empathetic about that, but they also have the same nerve-wracking transitions and reviews and feedback that they’re getting. So, hey, could we go and actually ask, “How could I make your life better today? How could I make it easier? How could I do a better job of showing up for you?”

Also, with your peers, this is a way to be kind of, in a sense, CEO-like. When I’m coaching CEOs to be ready for the job, they’re highly accomplished people. They’ve been doing a lot of successful impact in their companies or in the industry. But what’s going to really separate them apart is whether you’re willing to really help the organization move ahead, whether it’s your boss, your board, or an entire community organization.

So, this idea of actually doing the check-ins, people are astonished. They’re astonished when you’re asking them, “How can I do a better job of showing up for you?” That alone gives you disproportionate and outsized points with people, “I never thought Mark would, really? He’s not going to improve at that.” Like, “Well, how could I be a better listener, honey?” “Wait, what? You’re asking me?”

And so, I’d say that that ends up being, it’s disarming as well as empowering. And the good news is you don’t actually have to do all of that stuff. You can prioritize, right? Asking is really worth it.

Pete Mockaitis
Yeah, certainly. And I am a big believer that I have been asked before and I have been the asker, and it’s magic, it’s like, “Oh, well, thank you so much. Well, let’s see.” And it’s very beautiful.

Mark Thompson
It is.

Pete Mockaitis
So, let’s talk about your book, CEO Ready. You’ve coached a bunch of folks and you put together this book. Can you tell us any particularly surprising or counterintuitive discoveries you’ve made about us humans and becoming ready to take on the CEO job or just a bigger job?

Mark Thompson
Yes, I think that latter question is really what makes this the most profound surprise for me is because it ends up being relatable at all levels. Whenever you’re trying to, maybe, acquire the next level of responsibility, or step into the next role, or even be noticed and attractive for that next role, it’s important to do exactly what I’ve learned the titans of the world do when they’re being considered for the biggest job of their lives, running the biggest companies in the world. The very same attribute.

And it’s interesting, they often have a harder time than the most of the rest of us might because of the level of success that they’ve had, and that maybe overconfidence that they have in thinking that they’ve arrived at becoming a CEO as a destination. Your next promotion isn’t a reward for all you’ve done. It’s an opportunity to learn how you can now contribute at a higher level of skill.

In other words, the biggest surprise I learned is, no matter how far you’ve come, there’s always a little bit more to learn. And if you’re willing to ask, and if you’re willing to invest the extra time, effort, and humility to get better, that’s what you need to be promotable, to be attractive in that next job. That humility is attractive and disarming, very much like getting feedback.

And here’s the twist on it. It’s not that you’re humble because you’re afraid. It’s not that you’re humble because you don’t want to get out of bed because it’s too risky. That’s not the kind of humility related to fear. The humility has to do with being curious about what will it take to be successful at this next gig.

Pete Mockaitis
That’s right. Yes. And I see that connection between the humility and the curiosity is because, implied with the, “What will it take?” is the underlying assumption that, “What I’ve already been doing is not exactly perfect.”

Mark Thompson
Yeah, “I’d hate to think about it that way, so I don’t.” And if you do, the interesting thing is you get huge points for that. It’s one of the things that really differentiates people. Corie Barry, when she was being approached to think about being the CEO candidate, walking in the legendary footsteps of her predecessor who had rescued Best Buy as a Big-Box store, when he approached her, she sent him a seven-page expose, saying, “On the first page here, this is how I could really get the idea that I should be CEO, but I needed to work on these other six pages.”

And instantly almost, the board and he said, “You’re our gal.” The typical response for most folks is to either celebrate with arrogance, or celebrate with maybe denial that we have stuff to work on. And that we’re not quite ready. That’s the reason I really frame this as, “Are we ready for this?” It’s a matter of always preparing and practicing, and then having that sense of inquiry that allows you to understand what’s going to be needed next in that job.

I think a lot of people think that, as they go through their career, it kind of adds up to the next job. And now what you need to also is be kind of reaching and thinking about what is it going to take to be successful and to contribute success for your organization in that next role. I think that’s the difference, “Is it owed to me? Do you deserve it?” Probably.

“Are you ready?” No, because you don’t really know what’s going to be needed. It’s not that the boss who leaves even needs a mini me. They probably need something mini better. And that would be what, really, we found is kind of it’s both an enabler and it’s almost a secret career killer. It’s a blind spot to say that we were kind of avoiding it, being able to be talking about, “What do I need to learn for this next job?” It’s actually something that’s admired usually by leadership.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, I love that a lot. We had the CEO of Korn Ferry on the show, Gary Burnison, and he talked about that very same concept. I think he might have called it, was it leadership agility or learning agility? One of the top competencies associated with successful executives is just this, like, “Huh, what do I need to know and how do I learn it?” And by being not a know-it-all, but a learn-it-all, you serve yourself very well for advancement.

Mark Thompson
Right on. I’d say that ends up being something that differentiates you from the crowd. And then also this idea that we’ve been talking about here, which has to do with being interested in making your boss successful, “What are really the attributes that has made that individual able to get through their reviews? And how are they being rated? And what’s their span of control?”

Because then, you can also do something that you’ve been hired to be in your swim lane, but to be really interesting for the next role, you need to think about all the swim lanes that would be under the responsibility of the job that you would get if you were promoted.

And so, to think more expansively and empathically about what it will take to be successful in that next job, in addition to your current one, is something that aligns you, really, as being an easier pick. They’d rather have an internal person who’s got that context and then has had the extra temerity to put in the effort, run some other drills so that they’re ready for that next job.

It’s usually something that we think is a privilege or a prize, and it’s really more matter of actually earning it again, which is why our subtitle is how to earn and keep it, is because what’s needed usually for the next person in the job that you might get promoted into is probably not everything that that person currently is doing. It’s something else, something more, something different.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, and keep it is striking. I believe that there is some spooky data associated with, I don’t know if you want to call it a bounce rate, but people rise to CEO and then they exit kind of fast. Can you unpack this?

Mark Thompson
Boom. It’s been happening at a higher rate than ever before in history. The other thing that really led Harvard Business Review to approach Byron and I. Byron’s at NASDAQ, and he coaches boards and helps them. And I’m the guy who’s known to coach CEOs. And we’ve been seeing a turnover rate like never before.

And, in fact, if you see some of the research that they’ve done and others, the boards that pick a new CEO are often, half of them, are disappointed within 18 months. Not that they’re fired yet. And the level of activism, which are these kinds of shareholders who make a complaint that, “We’re not doing well enough as a public company,” will often, well, I’ll put it this way.

Five years ago, if you had a knock at the door from an activist investor, there was maybe a one in 20 chance that you’d lose your job as CEO. Today, it’s maybe 20% of the time. And if you’re at a big brand, it’s 40% of the time you’re out. So, it’s almost too late because they haven’t been expressing the alignment with all of their stakeholders, which is what we can all do at any level in our career.

This is what’s so portable about the principles of readiness that, think about all the people who have a say in choosing you for that next role, and think about all the people who have to be impressed or have to ratify the approval of you making an advancement, and see what you can learn about each of those responsibilities, each of those stakeholders.

For a CEO, it ends up being, “I need to learn about those shareholders and those pesky analysts and activists, and my board, if there’s a board of directors. I need, of course, to be better aligned with my CEO in whatever dramas she is going through or he’s going through. I need to know what the HR department’s doing, and I need to be able to think about my peers across the C-suite.”

In other words, if I’m in the job of CFO, I need to be thinking about my head of marketing and all the other people, the head of legal, the head of operations. They’re going to have to weigh in a little bit on voting me into office because I’m going to go from peer to chief if I’m lucky. And if I’m just a competitor. So, think about how, you know, often when at any level in the business, when it may be your first time manager, you are kind of, in a sense, in competition and collaboration with all of your other managers around you, your peers.

And if you’re to be picked out of the group, you can’t just be the one fighting for your own department. You have to be one who’s also seen as saying, “You know, Pete’s work is amazing, and I’m going to enable Pete’s work. I’m the better option. But I’ve got to prove that. And I’ve got to prove it to Pete, because maybe he’s not going to decide whether I get the job.” But it can often kill the prospects if you’re known as the person who’s just about me.

And so, thinking about your ascent when they’re banking the selection process is important, “How does this guy, Mark or Pete, show up compared to the others in terms of being able to play with others?”

Pete Mockaitis
Very well. Very good. Well, so I like your story about Best Buy a lot. Could you dive into another story that illustrates some of the principles and the best practices and the top things you recommend for folks, as someone who was maybe not so ready, but they dug in, they did some key things and away they went?

Mark Thompson
Well, you know, one of the people that I admire so much in technology is Cristiano Amon, who is the CEO of Qualcomm, one of the biggest chip companies in the world, known for patents, technical excellence, was running the biggest division of Qualcomm. What was so impressive about him when I did the 360, which is this idea that I’m suggesting that all of us who are listening to this program do, get some inputs from people all around you and see what you can do better.

And it’s interesting. He was actually the most insightful in self-reflection. He says that the job of trying to advance to the next level of responsibility is a job which means that you’re constantly, once you’re in your comfort zone, you’re now pushing yourself beyond it. I mean, once you feel like, “Well, we’ve got this stable. We’ve got this. Now we’re saying, okay, let’s take on more. Well, how exactly would we do that?”

And he had a wonderful way of expressing it. He said, “If you aren’t also trying to test to your edge of incompetence, I’m not sure you deserve to be here a year from now.” You need to stretch and say, “Okay, this is where I am today. I’m a mediocre trumpet player, but I just get my jollies every time I’m sent a sheet music that says intermediate from beginner. I’ve graduated. Everybody wants to be able to do that. What’s it going to take to push yourself just a little further than you’re comfortable?’”

Once again, I think we often can look at our careers as thinking we’ve done a lot of work, we’ve done it well, and we do deserve the advancement, that’s for sure. And yet this next job is going to be involving maybe getting out of your comfort zone in addition to being curious and then doing some skill building.

Pete Mockaitis
Yes. Okay. I like that a lot. Well, then can we walk through some key steps? So, we’ve got a mindset associated with humility and being of service and trying to help those who are higher-up succeed. And then if we’ve got that in place, what are some of the other top things you recommend we do?

Mark Thompson
Well, I’d say that one of the things that would be helpful is to think about yourself as a utility infielder. In sports, you know, that’s the person they throw onto the baseball field who can play more than one position.

So, if there are other types of opportunities, projects, collaborations with teams in other parts of the organization, in other words, kind of branch out across and see if there isn’t a way for you to get support from your boss to be able to help her or him with their reputation and the position of the department by supporting your division or having involvement in a new strategic initiative. So, you don’t have unlimited energy. You obviously don’t have unlimited time.

But to show the interest, I’d say that your punch list should be for this next year as we look at this wonderful year ahead, if there’s any resolution you had, it would be, “What else could I be doing in this current organization that would allow me to expand my experiences, my impact, my reputation? And what would those be?”

And what that does is it allows you also to test, “What do I really am interested in?” You’re going to try some things, “Oh, well, I don’t need to do that again.” Others, you might find as even another step in your career path. So, to be very intentional about setting your goals for the coming year to be one where you’re thinking about growing and getting noticed by expanding what you volunteer to do throughout the organization.

Pete Mockaitis
And so, there’s many directions, as you mentioned, that we might choose to take on and grow in. Do you have a top listing of the key things to demonstrate, or your book cover has a checkbox with a check mark in it, like the key boxes that we want to check and show others that we’ve checked?

Mark Thompson
Absolutely. So, number one is this idea that you’re thinking about the success of your boss, which we noted a moment ago. What is it that will make them successful in the year ahead? What is it that you could be contributed to that would allow them to be able to build their reputation? So that’s step number one.

Step number two is to really start to map some scenarios so that you can reach out across the department or other organizations so that you can get more experiences within that organization. Step three is to think about what kind of skill-building that might involve. Maybe you need to take an extra class. Maybe you’re going to learn something more about AI. Maybe there’s an opportunity for you to double down on a skill that you want to complete, which requires some fluency in something that you need to accomplish.

The next step is then to think about the stakeholders who are going to be making the decision, “How can I spend time with the people that I know who they’re going to ask about whether I should be advanced or not?” And start to find reasons to hit them in the cafeteria or go to lunch or spend some time with all those who have an impact on the decision that’s going to be made, those stakeholders that are so essential?

And then make sure that you are part of a regular feedback process in your organization. What I found, and you’ll see in the book, is that there’s at least two dozen types of psychological and personality assessments that people can take that are often brought in by the HR department to try to see, “Do you really have the temperament and the background that we need for the next job?”

This is definitely the case at the C-suite and the CEO level. There’s probably more tests out there than ever. And so, what I like to do is give people a sense of patience in undergoing that kind of activity of taking an assessment or getting some feedback. But it can be a gift because you can learn so much about yourself by using these tools.

You just have to calibrate for the fact that, when you do get feedback, especially from assessments, that it’s not necessarily an attempt to find the truth about you. It’s an attempt for you to become more self-aware of what perceptions you might generate in other people’s thinking about you.

Pete Mockaitis
Yeah. Well said. Well said.

Mark Thompson
In other words, it’s not the truth, right? I mean, when it comes to psychology, there’s never an absolute 100% correlation coefficient. It’s really more a matter of, “So, if I’m leaving the impression that’s like this, why are people having that perception?” If you can open your heart and mind to that, and it’s not easy, that makes you really incredibly accelerate your progress quickly.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, I like that a lot because many times the way these tools, these assessment reports’ outputs are phrased, it’s like, “Oh, on this dimension, on this construct, on this competency, you are at a 2.3.” It was like, “Oh, no, that’s a low number. I am bad at this.” Just to remember, “Ah, the assessment is not actually capable of telling me that I’m bad at this. It’s only capable of telling me the people’s perception of me on this.”

Mark Thompson
Thank you. Yes, exactly. Right. And I think that’s the interesting thing about integrating that feedback into your life, because you might feel that that’s a statement of the facts and that might hurt, the way you’re describing it. It’s interesting how perceptions are actually harder to change on the part of others than the facts are.

You can actually demonstrably become a better listener in meetings six, seven, eight times, and on the ninth time, blurt, interrupt, get short, and then they’ll say, “Yeah, no, Mark never listens.” And part of that is on you and parts on them because part of it is that it can be a little more convenient to stereotype each other, “And he just, Mark just talks and nobody listens. That’s just how he is.”

And then, “I don’t have to really, if Mark’s my boss, then I may not have to really invest in trying to find my voice and finding a way to speak to power and scroll up the courage to talk to that person.” So, it kind of lets them off the hook, because I’m just not a nice guy. The perceptions, too, also kind of stick for the reason that we don’t practice them with enough rigor and enough regularity.

That’s why readiness is really about a practice. I mean, you know, if you’re a musician or you play a sport or there’s some skill that you’ve developed, you’ve probably noticed that you get better when you practice it. And for me, particularly, if I don’t, I atrophy really fast. So, I think that ends up being the opportunity that most people are facing. If you want to be ready for the next gig, then practice and see how you might be able to show up differently.

Pete Mockaitis
Yeah. I’m curious, when you talk about this issue of perception, it’s tricky. We, human beings, we think what we think, we perceive what we perceive, we form opinions and judgments of others, and sometimes they’re accurate and sometimes they’re not. But, nonetheless, individuals’ perceptions will influence or decide whether or not we do advance. So, do you have any pro tips on just common mistakes that make other people think less of us that we should be on the lookout for to avoid?

Mark Thompson
Absolutely. And the context ends up being in the book, with respect to this notion of what you’re describing for really reaching out across, because if you’re going to be a chief executive, you’re going to lead a whole organization. The biggest blind spot ends up being saying that, “Because I was great at what I was doing in this part of the company, and I assume that I understand all the other executive functions in the company.”

And so, to be able to slow down and consider what is really the context in which people are expressing their value set or their needs based on, as I mentioned earlier, they might be the general counsel, they might be a lawyer, they’re going to talk a little differently than a chief marketing officer. They’re going to show up in a way that frames what they care the most about.

In the case of the lawyer, it’s probably, “Well, we need to be in compliance, and we need to make sure that people are safe, and that we don’t get ahead of ourselves.” And the marketing person was saying, “Yeah, but we need to reach everybody, and we need to be able to have impact, and we need to be able to light up people’s emotions,” and you’re both right.

And so, to the extent that you can start to be willing to learn a little bit of the language, and I talk about kind of conversational, you don’t have to be totally fluent in the language of all the other stakeholders. But I think what happens is that people will very much appreciate your interest in them. People appreciate when you ask about their functional area, when you are, we talked about curiosity earlier.

If you really show that, you get a lot of points in terms of their perceptions of your openness, your intelligence, and your appeal because you’ve talked about them, and you’ve talked about what they care about, and you’ve been able to explore in a deeper way what lights them up.

I wrote a prior book called Admired, which I have here, which is entirely about this, where we looked at the most admired people in companies. And what we found is that we all expect to be valued, respected, and admired for what we contribute. And we want to be valued, admired, and respected even for our intentions, not even what we’ve accomplished, but because we have good intentions.

And then we asked people, we did a national survey on this, then we asked people, “Well, how well have you come to understand what the people who you are relying on for that feedback, what they value, and what they’re interested in? I mean, do you know how they want to be valued and admired and respected?”

And the process of actually finding out what that is for your boss, for your peers, for the people who have impact on your boss, is an incredibly engaging and exciting prospect for…People love talking about themselves. They love talking about their journey and then, all of a sudden, they cut you slack when you share your point of view.

There’s very little of that. There’s not enough today, I think, in society of that kind of conversation of trying to understand. Steve Covey, who wrote, The 7 Habits of Most Effective People, and is famous for all of that, he used to always talk about, “Seek to understand before seeking to be understood.” And that would be game changer.

That would change the stakes, you know, “Once I’ve demonstrated that I’ve heard you and that I understand you.” I think people are reluctant to do that because I may have to, it sometimes implies that I agree with you by saying that I understand what you’re saying. And it’s not the case. And what I’m saying is, “I respect and admire and value what you’re saying. I’ll decide later whether I agree. But I’m not giving anything up.”

I think people think it’s zero sum that way. It’s either my way or your way. And I think if you consider, why it is people are thinking the way they are, why your boss is triggered by something, it’s probably because she or he is being judged by their bosses for something that you could help with that would get you promoted.

Pete Mockaitis
Right. And when you’re having these conversations to try to gain this understanding, are there any of your favorite go-to questions you love here?

Mark Thompson
One of the things that’s probably the most surprising is, “Who do they admire?” It’s interesting, when I asked you that question and I asked you to kind of form a picture in your head or your listeners right now, think about somebody that you really, truly value, admire, and respect, who you know, not just someone from history, but someone who touched your heart that you feel that way about.

And what’s nice about that is you can know a person really well and ask them, “I could ask Pete who I don’t know at all, ‘Who do you admire?’” Neither way would it be creepy. But it is actually rather intimate because people give you a very deep answer. They’ll talk about that mom who had endless patience, who supported the family and exhibited the kind of grit and effort to support to make this family successful.

And then you’ll ask them, “So, what is it about her that you’d like to be?” They’re almost always anyone you describe that you admire is someone who’s exhibiting attributes that you aspire for. And, all of a sudden, you ask this of a board member or your boss or someone that you can’t maybe say, “Could we sit down and have a deeper conversation about what drives you?” It’s like, “No, you’re not going to get that option.”

But if you ask who they admire, and really lean into it, people love talking about that person. And if you’re listening deeply, you’re going to find out that, “Wow, my boss really, okay, she really admires grit. She really admires the hours that I put in, maybe kind of even more than something else that I thought she needed.”

So, the people we admire is a metaphor for the goals and aspirations of the person you’re asking, which is something that we learned from our prior research. And it’s certainly true for great CEOs who go from having one boss, a supervisor, to 12 bosses, the board. And so, they have to do that with everyone, “Who do you admire? What’s driving you? What are you looking for in my job?” And those are the ones that get the job and keep it.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, thank you. Okay. Well, now could you share a favorite quote, something you find inspiring?

Mark Thompson
“You’ve got to be the change that you wish to see.” Often, that’s attributed to Gandhi. I don’t think that’s actually a precise quote from him. But to role-model what we’re seeking or hoping is a very hard and high standard to hold yourself to. And yet that’s what really is the most convincing.

If you’re going to be in a position, in a role right now, where you’re asking people to do things, well, how are we showing up that represents that so that ends up being a reinforcement, not hypocrisy? So, that’s one, I think, that’s very powerful in leadership.

Pete Mockaitis
And can you share a favorite study or experiment or bit of research?

Mark Thompson
Yes, we did a study on one of the most surprising attributes of who you can stand to work with. And many situations in which people work, collaboration is really, really hard. And one of the studies that was conducted by Bonita Thompson, actually at Vanderbilt, who owns the construct in collaboration, found out that you can actually work with someone you don’t like, but you can’t work for somebody you don’t trust, and there’s miles difference between the two.

Because there’s plenty of times where we’re working with people that we don’t exactly feel great about being with. You can’t always like everyone all the time. But if you feel like you’re in a situation where there isn’t that bridge of trust, that there isn’t kind of at least a mutually held trust that we’re both sharing the same goal, that’s an absolute game changer in terms of demotivating folks to work together.

I think a lot of folks find that surprising. It’s like, “Really? You can work for somebody that you don’t like?” I think that’s really important to understand, because the circumstances of work today are certainly stressful enough that that can often be the case.

Pete Mockaitis
Yeah. And a favorite book?

Mark Thompson
My favorite book was Contact, actually.

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, about the aliens?

Mark Thompson
Yes.

Pete Mockaitis
That’s fun. So, I was like, “So, is that about networking or building relationships?” “Oh, no, that’s the alien movie.”

Mark Thompson
I knew you wouldn’t see that coming. I thought it would be obvious or not be obvious. What’s interesting about that one is, actually, there actually is a way to segue anything back to the dialogue of leadership, right?

Because we talk about wanting innovation, we talk about wanting to have out-of-the-box thinking, and I think often the reason most organizations and most of us actually have a hard time innovating is because it feels a little bit like you’re talking about little green men or something that is not relevant, and so we instantly reject it.

And we don’t see what, you know, if we dig a little deeper, while we’re hoping for creative change, we’re hoping for innovation, sometimes, you know, once we hear it, we reject it so soundly that we never do advance. And I see a lot of organizations lose their way because they don’t take a little bit more of a Star Trek approach to saying, “Okay, it’s not here in the known universe or in physics, but if we really want to innovate, if we really want to be creative with something, we start there.”

My most actionable fun book on this topic, it was Creativity, Inc., where the folks at Pixar talked about making billion-dollar bets on movies. I mean, that’s the riskiest thing. And they always started there. They always said, “Okay, we’re going to hold our brainstorming sessions in three rooms. And the first room is going to be the one where “no holds barred” on the creativity.” So as crazy as it could be.

There’s nobody shooting anything down there, and they capture all that. It’s not until the next session in the next room that they start to curate, “Okay, so how do these ideas fit with what we’re good at doing and what we have the talent here to do, and that we think that we could accomplish in the time that we have?” And then you start to winnow it down to those framings.

And it’s not till a third meeting where you’re saying, “We’re not doing that. We’re not doing that.
We’re not doing that. We’re just doing this. We’re just doing this,” and they start to winnow it down. I think we close too early on our brainstorming sessions. And do that with your career. Think about kind of what would be the boldest thing you could do in the new year and how you might go about it.

The critics aren’t invited to that first meeting. It’s really more about you continue to imagine, because the self-critique and the critique by others doesn’t usually get you to first base or even second base. So, let yourself go nuts about the year that’s coming forward, and then think about then how to get a little more practical about how to operationalize that in the context of a real life, and then set it into goals going forward.

And that’s how I’ve found the highest achievers, those who become CEO-ready or ready for the next gig, kind of, are able to open their heart and mind and start to really put a plan together, because you deserve that. You really do deserve that if you aspire to be ready.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. And a favorite tool, something you use to be awesome at your job?

Mark Thompson
The tool that I use to be the most awesome thing in my job was the 360. Get one, have one, be a part of it, make sure that you get the regular feedback in all directions. I always had to breathe deeply to realize that maybe not all the feedback I got would be ideal. And it’s always been an unlock. It’s always been an accelerator. It’s always been something that allows me to kind of get better faster than anyone else when I was wanting to be promoted so I could get noticed.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. And a favorite habit?

Mark Thompson
The habit is gratitude. It’s not something that we naturally, or at least I naturally, leap to every day. Be grateful for the people and the opportunities you have. Actually, Hubert Joly, going back to the Best Buy story, he said, “Pressure is a privilege.” If you have the pressure of doing something really hard, that’s also an opportunity to be kind of grateful for that, “Well, I’m getting a chance to do this. It’s hard. It’s really challenging, but I get a chance to really make a difference.”

Pete Mockaitis
And is there a key nugget you share that people quote often and you’re known for?

Mark Thompson
What I’m known for is you can’t really scale your organization or scale your ambitions any faster than you can scale yourself. You’ve got to be able to invest in a way, in yourself, before you can expect it ever to be an outcome in that wonderful, cool company of yours.

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, that’s good. And, Mark, if folks want to learn more or get in touch, where would you point them?

Mark Thompson
I’d point them to ChiefExecutiveAlliance.com or just look up CEO Ready, which is just being released.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. And do you have a final challenge or call to action for folks looking to be awesome at their jobs?

Mark Thompson
I think that you deserve a promotion in this next year. Map a plan. Think about that as strategically as your biggest project and get some loving critics around you. Get some feedback, and most of that from your boss, and then put it in motion. That’s what you deserve.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. Mark, thank you.

Mark Thompson
Thank you.

Dec 01
0

1114: How to Achieve Authentic Thriving with Jon Rosemberg

By | Podcasts | No Comments

Jon Rosemberg discusses how to break free from limiting beliefs and reclaim control over your life.

You’ll Learn

  1. The difference between succeeding and thriving
  2. How to shift out of survival mode with A.I.R.
  3. How to spot and challenge limiting beliefs

About Jon

With over two decades coaching Fortune 500 executives and global teams through deep transformations, Jon Rosemberg has learned firsthand that growth begins when we courageously reclaim our agency. His personal journey, forged by immigration, loss, and career reinvention, inspires him to blend hard-won business insight with cutting-edge research to guide others toward greater meaning. Driven by his belief in human potential, Jon co-founded Anther, a firm dedicated to transforming uncertainty into possibility. He previously led high-impact initiatives at Walmart, Procter & Gamble, Indigo, and GoBolt.

Jon holds an MBA from Cornell University and a Master of Applied Positive Psychology from the University of Pennsylvania, where he serves as an assistant instructor. Originally from Caracas, Venezuela, he now lives in Toronto with his wife, Adriana, and their two sons.

Resources Mentioned

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Jon Rosemberg Transcript

Pete Mockaitis
Jon, welcome!

Jon Rosemberg
Hi, Pete, it’s good to be here.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, I’m excited to talk about thriving. You got a whole guide to thriving, so let’s discuss that exactly. But first, could you maybe contrast? You talk about thriving versus survival mode. Could you paint a little bit of a picture of what each feels like in practice?

Jon Rosemberg
For sure. And, Pete, have you ever felt like you’re in survival mode?

Pete Mockaitis
I think the answer is yes.

Jon Rosemberg
Yes. And what does that feel like?

Pete Mockaitis
Well, it’s not pleasant, you know? It’s sort of like I’m just trying to get through the day, and the responsibilities, and the stuff, and the calendar, and the to-do list. It’s a little bit harried, hurried, rushed, stressed, maybe elevated heart rate and more.

Jon Rosemberg
That’s a beautiful definition of survival mode. And what I especially loved about your definition was that initial exhale, the “Ahh!” So, yes, that is survival mode. And survival mode, evolutionarily speaking, is a highly adaptive mode to be in.

A few thousand years ago, if you were in the savannah and you heard, you know, like a rustle in the bushes, going into survival mode was really helpful because it allows us to focus all of our energy on what we need to do to survive. And it can be really, really helpful.

However, today, most of the challenges and threats that we face are not physical, they are psychological. So, survival mode sometimes gets triggered in moments that may not necessarily be the most helpful.

Pete Mockaitis
Understood. And that picture is nice. I just recently saw a Kurzgesagt video, they have these amazing animations, all about stress and it painted that very picture in terms of, you know, a beast in the wilderness and what that’s like. And so, I’ve heard that kind of a storyline, if you will, before about, “Oh, in the ancient times, this is very helpful, and now it’s almost counterproductive for us.”

But I’m wondering, you know, we feel what we feel. Jon, to what extent do we even have control over that? I mean, stuff happens. Emotions, reactions naturally flow from those things. So, to what extent can we have mastery versus we are a victim of these circumstances?

Jon Rosemberg
I love that question because it goes exactly to the heart of the book. The capacity to make intentional choices, which I call in the book agency, that realization that even in the most-dire of circumstances, we still have a choice, is the foundation for going from survival mode to thriving.

What is thriving? Most people think that thriving equals success. So, I’m going to say this very clearly. Thriving is not success. How do we measure success? We measure it with money, power, and reputation. These are three things that if you see somebody who’s got a lot of them, you say this is a successful person, right?

Thriving, on the other hand, it’s about agency, so the capacity to make intentional choices. It’s about belonging, i.e., being able to connect, to have meaningful social connections with other people. And it’s about meaning. It’s about seeing something in life that gives you a sense that your life matters, and that the people around you matter, and the way you navigate this world matters. So, it’s slightly different.

Now, I want to be very clear. I’m not arguing against success, because I think success is very helpful and very useful. And, by the way, I want success just as much as the next guy. What I’m suggesting here is that, maybe there’s a bit more of a balance that we can have between what success is and what thriving is. And that, in that balance, in that nuance, there may be a lot of well-being for all of us.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. Well, that sounds pleasant. Could you perhaps share some studies, research, or case studies associated with folks who made the leap from frequently being in a survival mode to doing the thrive thing regularly?

Jon Rosemberg
So, last year, there was a study published at Oxford that studied, I think it was 1,200 companies. And what they wanted to understand was the correlation between the well-being of employees, i.e., thriving, and stock market performance, the value of the company. And what they discovered is that the top 100 companies that had the highest levels of well-being outperformed the S&P 500 by 11% on average.

That’s a really compelling business case for anybody to say, “My business is going to outperform the S&P because, partly, it’s one of the variables,” and I’m implying causality now. This is just a correlational study, but I think it’s still a very compelling data point.

Pete Mockaitis
Certainly, I could see you might argue it both ways, “Well, yeah, well, it’s easy for them because they have so much ample cash flow and appreciation, etc. They can afford to invest in their employees.” But I suppose it is also the case that there are large flourishing companies that are big in revenue and profit, and yet are low on thriving, and could see all the more goodness with more thriving. Can you paint a chain for how more thriving means more profit?

Jon Rosemberg
Exactly. Well, what we know is that when we’re thriving, we can lean into our agency. So, this capacity to make intentional choices. And thriving usually means that we’re in this space where we’re calm and we can think more clearly. And that drives innovation. And we know that innovation is a great way to create value.

It also drives better social connection and stronger social connection. And it’s interesting because, Pete, if there was a medicine out there that increased your survival rate by 50%, decreased your risk of cardiovascular disease by 29%, decreased your risk of stroke by 32%, decreased depression and increased your well-being, if there was a drug that did all of those things for you, would you take it?

Pete Mockaitis
Sounds good, sure. It could have side effects, but looking good, yeah.

Jon Rosemberg
No side effects. The drug is social connection. So, when we are thriving, we are more capable of connecting with other folks. And that social connection is what creates great organizations. You know, what I learned, I spent over two and a half decades in the business world, climbing the corporate ladder as fast as I could.

And one of the things that I learned too late in my career, I might say, is that there are two types of value that you create at work. One of them is productive value. So, this is how good you are at your job. Can you create an Excel spreadsheet that beats everybody else? Or, today, can you work with AI better than everybody else? Can you create a project plan? Can you deliver a project on time and on budget? All of these things are productive value.

The other value that sometimes gets really overlooked, especially for folks that are getting into leadership positions, is relational value, is the ability to create those relationships and those connections that allow big groups of people to work together and do really amazing things together.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. Well, that sounds super. Can you share, when it comes to social connection, what’s the state of play with regard to humans, professionals, workers, and social connection?

Jon Rosemberg
Well, Surgeon General for the US, Vivek Murthy, published a report a couple of years ago where he spoke about, or he described the loneliness epidemic. We know that there’s people more lonely today than ever before.

And if you think about this, Pete, today, somebody who’s 18, 20 years old can get a job, and they can rent their apartment. And if they don’t want to, they don’t have to see anybody else for the rest of their lives, right? You could order food in, you could get everything that you need delivered to your doorstep, you get a paycheck working remotely.

So, technology has given us a lot of advantages, but it has also created certain gaps in places where we, otherwise, had to interact with people. So, there is a loneliness epidemic out there. And one of the ideas that I present in the book is this notion that when we’re thriving, it’s easier to connect with others. And when we connect with others, that has a ripple effect.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, so the social connection contributes to thriving, and the thriving contributes to social connection.

Jon Rosemberg
You got it. Yes.

Pete Mockaitis
Kind of like a circular, I guess, virtuous cycle up, or a doom cycle down.

Jon Rosemberg
I love that you just use that, Pete, because that’s exactly how I describe it in the book, as a spiral. There’s a spiral from survival mode to thriving. And sometimes we’re up and sometimes we’re down. And I think one point that you made at the beginning of our conversation, which is that, sometimes, external circumstances are outside our control. And that happens often, right?

We get laid off or we get fired from a job or, you know, a disease, we get sick. Like, there are many things that happen. What I’m trying to suggest here is that even in the worst of circumstances, and by the way, one of my teachers, I would call him, is Viktor Frankl, who wrote a great book called Man’s Search for Meaning, and Viktor Frankl was in concentration camps in Nazi Germany.

And it was him who argued in that book that even within all that suffering, he discovered a place where he could choose his attitude. And what he noticed was that the people who survived that horrible situation were those who could find meaning in their suffering and were those who could see a different perspective of what they were experiencing. Not the strongest ones, not the ones who had the most muscle, the ones who were taller or bigger, the ones who had more money. It was the people who found meaning.

Pete Mockaitis
Yes, and fun fact, I believe Man’s Search for Meaning is, when I ask about favorite things, comes up the most often as favorite book, favorite quote. So, it’s a powerful book and a beautiful one. And so, in practice, let’s say stuff happens and we’re freaking out, what do we do in the moment?

Jon Rosemberg
So, I went deep into the research and tried to understand, “How do we create more agency? If agency is the capacity to make intentional choices, supported by the belief that those choices matter and have an impact on the world, how do we increase that?”

And as I reviewed the research and I reviewed all the fantastic work that has been done by scientists over the past two and a half decades, because this is a relatively new topic, this topic of thriving, in science, I mean, philosophers have been talking about it for thousands of years. So, there were three things that came up that seemed really, really important. And I summarized them in an acronym, AIR.

And AIR stands for A for awareness, I for inquiry, and R for reframing. And when we are faced with a difficult situation or a difficult emotion or a negative thought, using AIR as a practice, can be a really powerful way to develop the skill that is agency and go a little bit more from survival mode into thriving.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. So, awareness, inquiry, reframing. Could you share with us, what that can look like in practice?

Jon Rosemberg
Of course. So, my youngest son, who’s nine, went to summer camp earlier this year. But three days before going to summer camp, he broke his arm and he had a cast all the way up to his shoulder. So, while his friends were jumping in the lake, he was playing with a Rubik’s Cube. And I’m going to try and use this Rubik’s Cube to explain a little bit how AIR works.

So, when we’re going through a difficult moment, it feels like the Rubik’s Cube is right next to our face, right next to our eye, and we can only see one of the little squares, right? You’ve probably heard people say, “I feel like I’m seeing red, right?” Like, we’re actually just seeing one color, one square of the Rubik’s Cube.

What awareness does is it allows us to create some distance from the situation. It allows us to actually notice that, “Hmm, okay, what’s happening here is not just red. Red is actually just one square amongst nine other squares. And if I actually start kind of looking at the Rubik’s Cube, I can see that it has six sides and each side has nine squares. So now I have a lot more information.” That’s what awareness does for us.

Then we go into inquiry. And inquiry is actually getting to understand what the situation looks like. And that’s asking a lot of non-judgmental, curious questions about the situation. And that means, basically, it’s like playing around with the Rubik’s Cube, just figuring out the different formulas and the different combinations that you can see in a Rubik’s Cube.

And reframing is when you find a combination that works for you. And that might be solving the Rubik’s Cube or it might be something different, but it’s a combination that works for you in the moment. So that’s a short, brief description of how AIR works.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay, so understood, with the Rubik’s Cube analogy, you can visualize that and notice that you could be way zoomed in and that’s not so helpful. Could you walk us through that as applied to a situation?

Jon Rosemberg
So, after two and a half decades in the corporate world, I decided to go into a startup, and we did great. We raised a Series B of $150 million. The company was growing at double digits every month. We were, as the kids would say, crushing it. And as we raised this money, I flew to LA to buy some new facilities because we were expanding the business to LA.

And when I flew back, I got hit with COVID and I was on a call with the technical team about some sort of technical stuff, and the call got really heated up and I was deep, deep into survival mode.

Pete Mockaitis
Heated up, tell me more, Jon. Were they pointing the finger at you?

Jon Rosemberg
They were pointing the finger, or at least that’s how I interpreted it in the moment. That was the interpretation. I was so close to the situation, I was seeing red. So, what I did is I shut off my laptop and turned off my phone. And in that moment, I was able to gain some awareness. I got some distance from the situation and I said, “Goodness gracious, am I angry right now?” I noticed the heat rising in my body, my chest got tight, my breathing got shallow, my shoulders got really tense.

So, I heard my kids playing in the basement, and I went downstairs to the basement and they were sitting on the floor playing with Legos. So, I sat on the floor with them and I started playing with them for about an hour. And as I was doing that, I started, well, number one, I was present with them. I was able to actually sit with them and share with them, which is something that I hadn’t done for months.

So, that experience, to me, it allowed me to find a little bit of thriving in that deep, deep state of survival mode. After that, I went and sat on my chair and I started reflecting in one of my favorite chairs, and I started reflecting on the situation. And the reframing for me was, in that moment, it was, I had two kids because I wanted to be a dad, and I’m not actually being a dad. I’m present, like they see me at breakfast, they see me at dinner, but I’m not physically present, but I’m not present with them. And that was really, really challenging.

So, Adriana walked in, my wife, and she said, “So, are you okay?” And I said, “I’m done, I think I’m done.” And within two weeks, I decided to unwind myself from that job and to walk away. So, my reframe in that moment was seeing the other option that I hadn’t seen before. Because for the longest time as I was working, I said, “If I quit this job, I’ll be living under a bridge in two weeks.” And that felt very real to me.

In that moment, I realized, “Well, what’s the point of all of this that I’m doing if I cannot be present for the people that I love and that I want to be with?”

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. So, the awareness of, “Hey, I’m getting really angry. It might be wise to go do something else.” And then you’re inquiring, asking those questions and then reframing the prior belief that you had, and sort of seeing new things come from it. Understood.

What’s interesting with regard to the inquiry, can you share a few more of those specific questions? Like, “What’s the point of this?” What are some more questions you were inquiring there?

Jon Rosemberg
Yeah, so, “What are my options right now? What’s important to me? What are my values? What is it that I want to do with my life? What does this look like for me if I continue down this path for the next two years, three years, five years? How is this impacting my health? How is this impacting my relationships? How is this impacting my sleep?”

So, all of these questions, asked in a non-judgmental way, and what I mean by that is that we have to actually be curious about it. Because if I’m asking a question and I already have the answer, it’s not really a question, is it? So, we want to challenge ourselves to do this.

Now in that moment, it was a process that I did internally as a result of burnout and a very difficult experience. But in day-to-day life, we can do this in partnership with other people, with our friends, with a coach, with whatever it is that people that are around us, some people do journaling. This exploration can be a really powerful way to get to know ourselves better and then to make decisions that are more agentic.

Pete Mockaitis
And I like what you had to say about the genuine curiosity because I think it’s quite possible in that state, some of your questions can sound like, “What’s their problem? Why do I always have to deal with this bull crap? Why is this happening to me?” etc. Like, any number of questions that are not guided by a wholesome curiosity, but rather just stoke the rage beast.

Jon Rosemberg
You got it. And often, we tend to focus on things that are outside our locus of control. Instead of focusing on what we can change on what’s under our capacity to influence, we focus on what everybody else is doing. And, unfortunately, it’s really hard to change other people. Trust me, I’ve tried for many years and it’s very difficult to change other people. But we do have the prerogative to change ourselves and to grow in the way that feels most authentic to us.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, could you give us another example of awareness, inquiry, and reframing in action that don’t result in a full exit, but rather being able to better deal with a current situation?

Jon Rosemberg
Yeah, what I love most about that question, Pete, is that you are hitting the nail on the head on the spectrum of agency, right? So, very low agency would be, “I have no choice here.” And if there is a moment in your life where you say, “I have no choice here,” number one, you are likely in survival mode. And, number two, there’s an open door there to practice AIR, to practice awareness, inquiry, and reframing.

Then if we go a little bit higher on the spectrum of agency, you could say, “Well, I can stay or I can leave, right? So, I only have two choices here. I either have to walk away or I can stay in my job.” If you had really high agency, once we’ve really developed agency, then you start seeing, instead of black and white, you start seeing a rainbow of options and opportunities in front of you.

So, you could say, “Well, I could stay and modify my job, change my hours, go to part-time, change my boss, move to a different division, whatever that looks like. Or, I could leave and go to another job or rest or, you know, paint for, I don’t know, whatever it is.”

And I understand that for a lot of people, there’s actually not a choice available to them, right? Because if you have to pay the rent and you are living paycheck to paycheck, this doesn’t necessarily happen. And this is why the developing agency in the moment is so important.

Pete Mockaitis
Yes. Whenever I hear the phrase, “I have to,” or, “I can’t,” I get skeptical. And so, you know, and maybe I am on the autistic spectrum and I take things super literally at times. But I think, “Is that really true?” And I’m thinking about the book, Nonviolent Communication by Marshall Rosenberg.

Jon Rosemberg
Marshall Rosenberg. Yes.

Pete Mockaitis
And he really brings up some points, like even if you think you’re stuck, it’s kind of wild what you can do. And he gives an example of, he thought, “Well, I have to keep…” He said, “I don’t like paying taxes because they’re supporting…” at the time, I think, the Vietnam War. And he was against the war. And he said, “Well, I guess I have to pay taxes because, you know, I mean, that’s the law and I’m a citizen.”

And he said, “Well, you know what? I suppose if I didn’t have income, I wouldn’t have to pay taxes.” And so, he made some dramatic changes. And then he also challenges teachers who say, “Well, I have to do all this frequent testing of the students because it’s required by the district, and that’s just a part of my job.” And he’s like, “Well, you also have the option of changing your job.”

So, it’s a more accurate framing of the situation is, “I need to do this testing for my students frequently if I want to retain my job and my income here. So that is my choice. Do I choose to play the game and maintain my job and my income here? Or do I choose something else? Well, I guess I am going to keep my job here.” But even working through that process contributes to more of the thriving feelings.

Jon Rosemberg
Absolutely. And I love so much that you brought up Marshall Rosenberg, because I think this is exactly what he’s arguing for in these examples, is this idea of reframing, changing the framing of the situation. And we get to do that. And one of the important concepts here is that we tend to buy into these absolute truths, right, that something has to be true.

And one of the interesting things in science that I don’t think has become as widely popular as it should be, is that science thrives on dissent. It thrives on challenging. If you’re a scientist that agrees with all of his, hers, their peers, you are highly unlikely to succeed. The whole point is that we want this type of creative dissent.

So, when somebody presents you with a premise, is there an opportunity to do a lot of inquiry and challenge that premise and figure out if it’s really true? So, one good example that has worked really well is a lot of people say, “Well, but two plus two is four.” Well, but two plus two is not always four, right? There’s an axiom that tells us that the first number is zero, and then you add one and it’s one and then two and then three and then four. That’s the axiom that we, a lot of us do math with or arithmetic.

But if you’re looking at a clock, right, after 23:00, so if you say 23 plus two, it’s not 25, it’s one, right? So, it’s a different axiom that we’re using. So, what I’m trying to present here is that we get to challenge the things that we believe to be true. And this is a uniquely human capacity and it’s incredibly powerful.

Pete Mockaitis
Certainly. And then, you get me thinking in terms of, well, if our objective is to get to four, there’s many ways that we might achieve the getting to four. And perhaps addition is not even the operation that we’re after in a given situation.

Jon Rosemberg
You got it. So, we can come at things from different angles once we have awareness. Once we move that Rubik’s Cube a little bit away from our face, we can actually start exploring all of the angles. And it’s a practice, right? It sounds easy when I say awareness, inquiry, and reframing, right? It sounds so simple. But many of us spend years, if not decades, trying to bring more awareness to our lives.

So, mindfulness is something that can work to bring more awareness, and a mindfulness practice, being able to be present in the moment. Those are some of the things that we can do in order to hone our skill of awareness. And then inquiry, learning to ask good questions, that’s a difficult skill. That requires a lot of practice, right? And then reframing is actually seeing different angles. And all of those things require, they’re like a muscle, right? And if we go to the gym to get buff, we can practice this to gain more agency.

Pete Mockaitis
And one place you advocate practicing this is by examining our beliefs and seeing if there’s some limiting beliefs. Can you expand on this?

Jon Rosemberg
Yeah, so beliefs are like lenses that we have over our eyes, and they kind of filter the world for us, right? There’s lots of evidence to suggest that beliefs are so powerful that they can even change the way in which we react to pain.

For example, the placebo effect, and this has been documented many, many times that when you’re in pain, you can take a placebo, and they tell you that it’s pain medication and your pain actually decreases. So, our beliefs are very, very powerful filters with which we navigate the world.

One of the things in the work that I do coaching clients is trying to name the belief, right? So, in my case, I said, “I believe that if I walk away from this job, I’m going to be living under a bridge in less than two weeks and I’m not going to be able to pay my mortgage, etc.” I had to challenge that belief and say, “Well, is that actually true? Or, is there a different way to look at this belief?”

And I said, “Well, I have friends, I have a family, I have a social support network, I know people will help me out if I can’t have income, I have some money in the bank, or I can move to a smaller place.” So, there are all of these things. The moment you take that belief and you challenge the belief, then you can step into a world of options. Then you step into that rainbow of options as opposed to seeing the world in just white, just black, or black and white only.

Pete Mockaitis
I like that a lot. Can you give us an example of some other limiting beliefs that you’ve seen folks successfully challenge and have great results on the other side?

Jon Rosemberg
I think the toughest belief to challenge, and I struggle with this every day, and I think it’s one of the big reasons why I wrote the book, and it’s a true line in the book, is the belief that, “I am not good enough.” The flip side of that is the belief that I have to prove myself.

Because we live in this system where productivity defines value, productivity equals value, I’ve asked dozens of clients the question, “What would your value be if suddenly you could not produce anymore?” And people are stumped. It’s really hard to respond to that question, “What happens if I can’t produce?” “Well, I could still talk my way through something, or whatever it is,” but you cannot produce.

So, challenging the belief that our worth is tied to our productivity is very liberating work, and it’s very challenging work, because this is a deeply ingrained belief.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. Well, so walk us through the process of that challenging and what might come out the other side.

Jon Rosemberg
I think it’s sitting with it. The first thing that we do is creating awareness, naming it, “Is this a belief that you’re buying into? Do you buy into the belief that if you don’t produce, you’re not good enough?” Pause for a second and just notice, “Is this something that sounds true to you? If it does, then get really curious about it.”

So, “Where does this belief come from? Whose voice do I hear in my head when I say that I believe this? What has this belief, how has it served me in my life? What has it done for me?” In my case, that belief allowed me to climb the corporate ladder ruthlessly for decades, right? So, it served me really well in many, many ways.

And, eventually, I came to the reframing of saying, “There’s fundamental value in just existing in just being a human. We are a wonder of nature.” Think about it. You know, earth has been around for what? Four billion years? And we’re here, you and I, Pete, having this conversation. That in itself, it’s a miracle. We’re sitting in this, you know, one galaxy out of, I think, there’s like two trillion of them in the universe, and this universe continues to expand. So, it’s really magical the fact that we exist.

So, is that fundamental value? And what challenging that belief did for me was allow me to give myself the space, for example, to end up thinking about the ideas that, eventually, I decided that I wanted to put into a book. So, I started to question. It’s existentialism. You start questioning why we’re here and what does that mean?

Pete Mockaitis
Well, it is a powerful belief to look at directly, and we covered this on episode 500 with Victor Cheng, talking about Building Unshakable Confidence, and having the belief that I am valuable or worthwhile simply because I exist. And you could see that in wisdom traditions, or religion, Christianity being made in the image and likeness of God, or the United Nations’ Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

It’s interesting because it’s an idea that I purport to believe, and I like to believe it on my best days, and yet I do feel some discomfort. If I imagine a universe in which I am, say, in a vegetative state at a hospital, I am existing, but I am not doing or “adding value,” I sometimes think, “Well, yes, I value just because I’m existent, I am a human being.”

And other times it doesn’t feel that way, that the belief doesn’t feel true. So, yeah, no pressure, Jon, but how do we deal with that one?

Jon Rosemberg
I don’t know. I don’t know. This is a profound existential question that you’re asking, Pete. And I think the exercise of just questioning it is a pathway to thriving. Just being able, for a moment, to hold that notion that you have fundamental value just by existing, and just believing that 0.00001% in your life, I think that in itself, it’s a gift.

Listen, Pete, I struggle with it every day. You know, I’ve been doing this work, I went back to school and learned psychology so I could challenge that belief. I’ve read lots of papers and lots of books trying to challenge this belief, and I don’t have a clear answer. I don’t think there’s a recipe.

I actually, as a matter of fact, what I would suggest, and this is one of the things that I did in the book, and it was hard for me to find a publisher because a lot of the publishers kept telling me, “Jon, you have to be more prescriptive. People want to know exactly what they need to do.”

And I kept saying, “Well, I’m writing about agency. If I’m telling people that the whole point is that you learn what’s right for you and that you have to develop or you can develop, you don’t have to do anything, but you can develop this muscle that gives you access to thriving in your life, how am I going to sit there and tell you exactly how you do it?” I don’t have a recipe for it. I think we each have to find our own way through.

Pete Mockaitis
And it’s funny, where my brain is going is thinking that I have value just by existing even in that, you know, comatose state, because by providing an opportunity for others to be of service and reflect upon their gifts, their blessings, their capabilities that is of value and beneficial. And yet, I could see I’m already drifting into territories, like, “Well, then that’s not intrinsic.” It’s like, “It’s what I’m doing for other people by doing nothing.”

Jon Rosemberg
Exactly. Yeah, it’s a tough idea to grasp, especially because the system where we are living is built on this belief of productivity equals value, right? So, it’s really hard to think outside of that unless, you know, maybe we go to meditate in some mountain for 20 years, maybe we can access that. That’s not my choice.

Agentically speaking, that’s not something that I want to do, and I do want to be able to sit there sometimes with the discomfort of feeling like I’m not good enough or that I have to prove myself. And as I’m sitting with that discomfort, having a small window where I can challenge it, and I can say, “Well, maybe I do have fundamental value. Maybe I do have intrinsic value just for existing.” And that in itself can be quite comforting. At least it has been for me. And also, anxiety-inducing.

Pete Mockaitis
One perspective I like to bring to this is, as I think about my children when I watch them sleep, they’re beautiful, adorable, I love them, and they are doing nothing there, but I am not disappointed with them. I don’t want or demand or need them to be doing anything. Them just existing in that space, I find valuable and beautiful and excellent and full of love, with them doing nothing at all. They are just existing.

Jon Rosemberg
What a beautiful and powerful reflection, Pete. And I think that the emotion and the moment in which we experience that type of connection that you’re describing that you have with your kids, that’s thriving.

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, cool, yeah. So, more of that would be great.

Jon Rosemberg
Oh, goodness. It’s not easy, right? It requires effort because we are designed for survival. Our bodies and our brains are designed for survival, right? There’s this evolutionary mismatch that has occurred where technology has taken us to this point where we have, listen, by all measures, we are living in the golden age of humanity.

And I know we see different things on social media. We see different things in the news. But if you look at access to water, access to food, access to education, access to healthcare. Longevity, Pete, 100 years ago, you and I would be buried six feet underground, because the life expectancy, well, I’m not sure how old you are, but life expectancy was 32. Today, it’s more than double that, right?

So, we are in this golden age of humanity. And for some reason, anxiety and depression seem to be one of those persistent things that we don’t understand what is happening. And one of the explanations that seems to make a lot of sense is that our brains and our bodies have not evolved to keep up with the world that we’re living in today.

So, what I’m suggesting is that agency may be one of the antidotes to this experience that we’re having as humans living in this age.

Pete Mockaitis
Yeah. Well, that’s big stuff, and you can sit with it for a while. And I think the word value is key there. And so, in terms of economic value, I say it may be true, you know, that if we’re not doing anything, we are not producing, you know, money, dollars, economic value, but in a deeper sense, our human value remains.

Jon Rosemberg
Exactly. And, you know, why do we see so many people who have supposedly made it, billionaires, trillionaires now, we’re going to start having trillionaires soon, why do we see so many people who have access, economically speaking, to all of the resources? I mean, the wealth distribution gap has never been larger in humanity either. So, why do we see people who have all of this and still struggle to thrive?

And we see it in the way they communicate. We see it in the way in which they relate to the world. This is a challenging thing to experience. And so, that’s why I want to make sure that we separate the ideas of success and thriving. And I’m sure there’s a Venn diagram where the two overlap, and that’s a happy middle. And that’s what I’m arguing for. For trying to find more moments of thriving, even if it’s at the cost of letting go some of the success, which is the hardest thing to do.

Pete Mockaitis
I like that Venn diagram approach because it also gets you thinking it’s entirely possible to thrive without being successful.

Jon Rosemberg
Yes. Yes. A resounding yes.

Pete Mockaitis
Cool. Well, Jon, we’ve gone into all kinds of profound places. Can you tell me, before I hear about your favorite things, a few of your top tips, your do’s and don’ts for getting more thriving going?

Jon Rosemberg
I would say the first thing is find time for reflection or for a practice that works for you, whatever that is. I tried to meditate for two years. I have a meditation pillow right here in my office, and I sat in that pillow. For two years, I sat on that pillow trying to meditate, and I hated it. My goodness, could I not do it. I just couldn’t do it.

I decided, one day somebody suggested a walking meditation. So, I put on my headphones and I went for a walk and I was like, “Oh, I can do this. This suddenly changed my life.” So, today, I go for even two hour-long walking meditations that I can do with or without headphones, guided or unguided. I had to find the activity that was the right fit for me.

So, a do is, find activities, test many different things, call them little experiments, or however you want to name them, test many different things until you find the one that works for you because there are lot of prescriptions out there that will work for many people. Listen, even cognitive behavior therapy, which is the gold standard for therapy in that world, only benefits about 40%, in the best case, 80% of people. So, it doesn’t mean that it’s for everybody. So, find whatever works for you. That would be the do.

The don’t is just waiting for something magical to happen. We have to use our agency, our capacity as humans to make change happen. It has to come from inside, right? Nobody can make change happen for you. It’s something that we all have to own and take it upon ourselves. And it’s hard and it’s painful. But in my experience, a lot of times the discomfort of staying the same, it’s much worse than the discomfort of changing.

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

Jon Rosemberg
One of my favorite quotes is from William James, one of the fathers of psychology, and I actually have it here on my wall, and it’s, “My experience is what I agree to attend to.”

Pete Mockaitis
Yeah, you can work on that for a while.

Jon Rosemberg
Yes, attention is a powerful resource and it’s non-renewable for humans. Once we’ve given it, it’s gone. And we have so many things fighting for our attention today. If we can be more agentic as to where we place our attention, that can be a life-changing practice.

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, yeah, that’s powerful. What I agree to attend to is, like, we need not attend to necessarily anything just because, “It’s all over Twitter,” “The headlines are saying this,” “My feed, all my recommended YouTube videos.” It’s like, “Yeah, and we always have that choice.” I can choose to attend to that. I can agree or I can disagree to attend to a matter, and we’ve always got the power.

Jon Rosemberg
So, let’s look at the numbers on this just very quickly. Every second, the sensory input that we get, it’s between 10 and 100 million bits of information. Every second. Only about 10 to 50 filter into our conscious awareness. And of those 10 to 50 that filter into our conscious awareness, usually there is a five to one negativity ratio. I mean, that’s the negativity bias that we look for.

You post something on Instagram and you get 20 likes and 300 comments saying, “You’re amazing.” But there’s one comment that’s negative and we will focus on the negative comment, right? That’s the negativity bias at play.

Imagine if we can actually learn how to better manage what we agree to attend to. It’s life-changing because you have 100 million choices, and you only get to do 10 to 50. So that’s a really powerful practice.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. And a favorite book?

Jon Rosemberg
It’s a book about therapy, actually. Her name is Marsha Linehan, and she created something called dialectical behavior therapy, and she wrote her autobiography. And one of the powerful ideas in that book that really resonated with me is the idea of dialectics, that two things that seem opposing can be true at the same time. And I think that’s a really powerful way to look at the world and to understand complexity.

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

Jon Rosemberg
You can go to my LinkedIn. I’m very active on LinkedIn, Jon Rosemberg. You can go to my website, JonRosemberg.com, and, yeah, that’s the best way to reach me.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. And do you have a final challenge or call to action for folks looking to be awesome at their jobs?

Jon Rosemberg
Yes, take the time to hone in the skill of agency. However, it works for you, just take the time to understand it and to play around with it. It can be life-changing.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. Jon, thank you.

Jon Rosemberg
Thank you, Pete. I appreciate it.