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Feb 05
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1126: How to Build Connection and Understanding through Excellent Listening with Katie O’Malley

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Katie O’Malley reveals her three-step listening method that fosters greater trust, connection, and understanding.

You’ll Learn

  1. Why attention is so quick to drift—and three ways to pull it back
  2. What most miss with active listening
  3. Why shared experiences don’t build connection—and what does

About Katie 

Katie O’Malley is an Executive Coach and Leadership Educator with twenty (20) years of professional experience serving the nonprofit, education, and corporate sectors. Across these workplaces, Katie noticed her strengths and values consistently steered her toward the support and development of others. 

Since 2018, Katie has worked alongside hundreds of individual, team, and organizational clients as the Founder and Principal Coach of (en)Courage Coaching. Established with the noble mission of providing exceptional, financially accessible coaching services to Chicago area professionals, (en)Courage Coaching has grown to support individuals and businesses from around the world.

Resources Mentioned

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Katie O'Malley Interview Transcript

Pete Mockaitis
Katie, welcome!

Katie O’Malley
Thank you so much for having me on your podcast today.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, yes, I’m excited to be getting into it. You call yourself a professional listener, which is a great role. Can you tell us something surprising you’ve learned about listening over the course of your professional listening career?

Katie O’Malley
I think one of the most helpful things that I learned is that our brains move entirely too fast for the person who is speaking to keep our attention. And so, we are already at a deficit for being able to stay focused and attending to the person who is speaking because the rate at which we speak versus the rate at which we process information is like a tricycle going up against an F1 race car.

And so, even just knowing there is a misalignment in the pace of speech and the pace of processing of our brain can be really helpful in just folks saying, “Yeah, I am going to not be able to necessarily stay focused on what someone is saying unless that is my intention when I am starting out in the conversation.”

Pete Mockaitis
So, the tricycle versus the race car, so our brains are the race car, because they can go way faster than the person we’re speaking to, listening to, is the tricycle. Now, it’s interesting how you might assume, it’s like, “Oh, great, that means we’re like overqualified. We got more than enough to get the job done,” but that’s actually counterproductive for us. Can you elaborate?

Katie O’Malley
For sure. The first time I read that, I started laughing as soon as you brought that up because I’m like, “This should be so easy. We should be able to understand and hear everyone perfectly,” and yet, look at where we’re at in the world and we can hardly attend to ourselves, much less fully attend to another person.

And so, what ends up happening is we will lose the thread on what someone is sharing with us really, really quickly. And it is hard to pull ourselves back into the conversation without them saying something really surprising, without them saying, “Hey, are you listening?” or using our name. Those tend to be the three things that’ll pull us back.

But, generally, if we are listening, for example, to our parents or our friends and they’re going on with the long form version of the story, those things aren’t necessarily happening. And so, what I encourage folks to think about is what I call the AIR formula for listening.

And it’s an acronym. A stands for attention, I for intention, R for recognition. And it’s a methodology you practice while you are actively listening to be able to fully understand, not just hear, what someone is communicating with you.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, I, certainly, shortly want to go into the attention, intention, recognition framework in some detail. And I guess I’m just curious about this bandwidth point a little more. It’s funny how, well, first you mentioned the name and it is so true. Like, I’ve been in conversations with only a few people in my life actually use my name frequently when I’m speaking to them.

And every time it’s like, “Huh? Huh?” It’s like, “Huh? Yeah?” It’s almost like being called in class, like, “Oh, what did they just say? I better really zero in.” So there’s a freebie extra tip right there. We’re talking about listening, but, hey, you want people to listen, say their name a lot. That works.

So, with this bandwidth point, it’s funny, I’m thinking about like YouTube videos now with regard to many of them, we’ve got multiple camera angles. We’ve got quick cuts. We’ve got like extra footage. We’ve got maybe sound effects, “Oh,” and little emoji things popping up to greater or lesser effect.

And it’s sort of funny, it’s like that is almost necessary. Me just sharing a perspective for 15 minutes is not optimized for retention in the algorithm.

Katie O’Malley
It’s so true. And it’s a bigger part of the attention economy that we currently inhabit, right? So companies are no longer just mining for our dollars. They’re mining for our attention and for our time. And in order for them to keep our attention, they need to do exactly what you were describing. And we actually have to, in some ways, resist that.

So to choose what it is we’re going to attend to every day, and I think part of that starts with the human who is right in front of you, not the screen, not the big screen, not the laptop screen, not the phone screen, not the smartwatch screen, but the actual human who is in in front of you, and starting to practice and build reps around listening in that way.

Because we were… And stop me if you had a different experience in K through 12, but growing up we were taught to read, write, complete math problems all the way up to calculus proofs. But no one ever taught us to listen, even though teachers and parents were constantly saying, “Listen up. Pay attention.” No one ever taught us how to actually do that effectively or to control our brains for long enough to be able to choose what it is we would tune into and tune out of.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, you mentioned teachers and parents teaching. You had a beautiful story about your mother teaching you a lesson about listening. Can we hear it?

Katie O’Malley
Absolutely. So, taking you back to, gosh, 1993, I’m 11 years old, Northwest suburbs, outside of Chicago. And it was after dinner. My mom was sitting at the kitchen table. And I think this is important, drinking a Crystal Pepsi, right?

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, I remember those. Can you still get that? I liked that. I think it’s been gone for years or decades.

Katie O’Malley
Yeah, they discontinued it in pretty short order.

Pete Mockaitis
It’s a darn shame.

Katie O’Malley
She was drinking a Crystal Pepsi, flipping through a magazine like Better Homes and Gardens, and I’m on our landline phone that is corded into a wall, and everyone can hear my conversation, right? There’s no privacy as a child in that way, really, back in the the ‘80s and early ‘90s and I was on the phone for about an hour. It was like my after-dinner activity with my very best friend, her name’s Jenny.

And got off the phone after an hour, hung up the phone, and within seconds of me hanging up the phone, my mom very calmly said, “You’re grounded two weeks starting tonight.” And I was just beside myself. I was a good kid. That was the first time I had ever been grounded. And, Pete, I didn’t even know what it was for.

And so, racking my brain, “Did I swear or curse on the phone? Did I tell Jenny a secret I wasn’t supposed to tell her? Was I gossiping or speaking ill of someone?” And I couldn’t find where the issue was. And I said to my mom, tears in my eyes coming down my cheeks, and I said, “I don’t understand why I’m grounded. What is this? What happened?”

And she goes, “You were on the phone with your ‘best friend’ for an hour, and you talked about yourself the whole time. You talked about your day at school, your activities after school, what you had for dinner, what you’re going to have for a snack. You didn’t even pause long enough for her to interject. And you didn’t ask a single question either. And that’s simply not how we treat people in this house. So you’re grounded for two weeks starting tonight.”

And I’ve never forgotten that. It was so powerful because it bumped up against my identity of being a good, caring, kind human. And I had let her down, which all of this was new, I had never really done before. And what I think made that moment even more impactful was she was battling colon cancer at the time and passed away just about a little over a year later.

And it’s one of those last moments or memories that you have with a parent. It kind of gets imprinted on your brain and on your heart. And ever since, it’s just if I’m going to move through the world as the type of human my mom would have wanted me to grow up to be, listening has to be a part of that.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, that is powerful. Thank you for sharing.

Katie O’Malley
You’re welcome.

Pete Mockaitis
And it’s beautiful, and what a legacy, to see that many thousands of folks listening better as a result of that imprinted moment and her conviction and example. So that’s beautiful stuff.

Okay. Well, so then, listening seems like a friendly, kind thing that our mothers would like for us to do. And it seems like something we “should do.” But could you expand for us, what are the concrete benefits of upgrading our listening from whatever is the norm in this day and age to a masterful level?

Katie O’Malley
Yeah, so benefits include, first, really, when we listen, it’s not just about the other person. It’s about us. And so, there is, to some extent, a level of self-development that is happening even while you’re attending to another person and what they’re saying.

But by attending to them through actual listening, not just performing listening, which is active listening, which is something most people know about. And it’s a little bit like you’re doing right now for folks who are listening in. Nodding your head, making eye contact, kind of mirroring my body movements. That is active listening, but that’s a performance. That’s the thing that keeps our busy brain occupied long enough to actually start to focus on what’s being said.

So let me back up, though. The other benefits include, we are so isolated and lonely and starved for real human connection right now. And I think some of that started happening right around 2013, 2014, when Instagram started to pick up speed, kind of doubled down in the pandemic.

But as a result of that, folks have lost the ability to connect with one another and know how to really connect and tolerate the discomfort of, “I’m not sure what this person is going to say and I’m supposed to have a response,” because that’s how we’ve been socialized to respond when someone finishes speaking, not just continue down the path of learning more about them.

And so, iIf we’re able to do this, what the benefits include are greater connection because we have greater understanding with somebody else. We’ve given them dignity from listening, which I also think is something that is missing in our day-to-day adventures in the world, whether online or in real life.

And then also trust. Social trust is so low right now. And you can take just about any community, trust in schools, trust in families, trust on your team, and in your workplace. If we want to get back to a place where we understand and trust each other enough so we can connect, listening has to be forefront of that equation. And it’s just not yet.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. Understood. Well, so this framework – attention, intention, recognition, AIR – let’s hear the rundown. How do we do it?

Katie O’Malley
So the way I encourage folks to think about this is applying it almost in, like, a double helix way. Like, DNA has those two strands that are wrapping around, and we are applying the AIR formula to our conversation partner. Simultaneously, we are applying the AIR formula to ourselves. And so, I’m going to go through each bit of it so we can talk about what that looks like.

A stands for attention. And I always say listening is a function of attention. We can’t listen unless we are at attention. And this is where active listening is actually very valuable and doing the things that I previously described, which is very apparent to the person who is talking. And it encourages them to keep sharing when you’re nodding, making eye contact, mirroring body language.

But we also need to be attending to ourselves, because we are the ones that tend to get in the way of our ability to really hear and understand someone when we’re listening. And so, what I encourage people to think about when you’re attending to yourself, scanning your body for what’s coming up.

Are you feeling your heart start to race when somebody shares something? Are you getting goosebumps when they communicate something that is really inspiring to you? Are you attending to the fact that maybe you floated away for a minute and weren’t paying attention anymore? And what caused that?” And starting to look for patterns in your brain and your body to be able to say, “These are kind of the tripwires that get me out of attention on what’s going on instead of staying focused on the person.”

And I also share one of the very best ways to do that. Put your phone on do not disturb. Put it on airplane mode. Mine has been in that setting for the better part of a decade, much to the dismay of friends and family. But when I am with them, there’s nothing that they appreciate more than me being fully with them. And so, they also understand when they can’t get a hold of me for three, four, six hours at a time, they get that same attention when I’m with them. So that’s A.

Pete Mockaitis
And to your point about people appreciating it so much that you’re with them, I have heard this comment made about a number of famous people. And, let’s see, I’m trying to, and I think there was a pope, there was a saint, there was a president, you know, there was a celebrity. And folks were stunned by this mesmerizing power they had, it’s like, “It’s like he was just with you.”

And it’s funny because, in a way, it doesn’t seem like that’s that extraordinary, and yet, apparently, it really is because people are struck when it occurs, particularly if it’s by someone who is of elevated stature, we’ll say. It’s like, “Oh, I am so lowly and they are so important, and they gave to me this gift of their full attention. And I was awestruck by that.”

Katie O’Malley
Our attention is a currency to spend, just like our money. And I think we have two of them right now. We have our money, and we have our attention, and so your point is spot on. And even if it’s just two folks having a conversation, and you’re able to do that for somebody, that’s how starved we are for attention from another human, is that that will stick with you much longer than most anything else that might happen to you in a day.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, and talking about tripwires, let’s see. Well, it’s funny as it’s so meta. We’re talking about attention. You mentioned it’s like a double helix. And then I was transported back in time to high school in which I was looking at a spread in my biology textbook about the double helix and the just amazingness of the process of DNA transcription and translation.

And the first time I learned about that, I was like, “Holy smokes, this is for real. This happens all the time, constantly in our bodies? This is so complex and information rich and miraculous and crazy.” So, anyway, that has very little to do with the conversation we’re having now. The revelations of biology from Pete in high school.

And so, I was there for, I don’t know how many seconds, more than three, and so let’s talk about that. When you’re attending to yourself and other, there will be times in which you are drawn elsewhere. What do I do with that?

Katie O’Malley
Every time, Pete. Every time you’ll be drawn elsewhere. Everytime.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay, every time. So what do I do with that?

Katie O’Malley
Every time. I do this for a living. It happens.

Pete Mockaitis
Yeah, what do I do with that?

Katie O’Malley
The very first thing is that your brain needs to know you’re going to do something with that thought or that you’re going to stay on that path. And so, when I was in graduate school and training up to be a therapist, it was one of the first things they said to us, “Every session you have, your brain is going to go somewhere else. It’s not going to be on your client for 52 and a half minutes, or whatever insurance companies pay for now.”

And that’s okay. That’s normal. That’s how we’re wired. But you have to do something with that thought. And the very best thing to do in that moment, jot it down, write it down. And if you can’t do that, then almost silently talking to yourself, saying, This is important to me, and I’m going to come back to it later. But this person is more important right now.”

And just practicing the compassion of you’re not going to stay focused on the person the whole time. You know this is coming. It’s going to happen at some point. The goal is how quickly can you become aware of it and come back into the conversation? That’s the goal, to reduce that time footprint you’re away.

Pete Mockaitis
Yeah, that’s intriguing. And I liked what you said about the note. We can write it down or you can sort of mentally write it down. And I’m thinking there are so many like memory tricks associated with forming associations. So, maybe it’s like, “Hey, next time I sit at my desk, I’m going to create a mental imagination association between sitting at desk and, whatever, the DNA double helix or whatever.”

And so, then you’ve effectively “written it down” in your mind such that you feel like you’ve got the permission to let go of it all the way.

Katie O’Malley
Exactly. And it could even be as easy, Pete, as saying, “Gosh, Pete, the double helix is important to you. Be sure to come back to it after this conversation. That’s enough.”

Pete Mockaitis
Yeah. Cool. All right. So, attention, it will certainly slip. We become aware. We note. We return. Understood. How about intention?

Katie O’Malley
Yeah, intention, this is the one that’s really tricky, especially for those of us who have been socialized in America and in our culture and in our society, where extroversion and speaking is prized over folks who are more introverted, quiet, not always using their voice, right?

But what I always say is communication has not taken place if the message was not received by the other person. So you can talk faster, you can talk louder, but if the other person isn’t attending to you and trying to understand, communication hasn’t taken place.

So, with intention, within the AIR formula, it’s your constant. It’s never going to change, whether you’re in a boardroom or at the baseball field for your kiddos. Your intention is always going to be to do your very best to understand what is being shared with you and not fall into the trap of trying to respond, debate, win someone over with your perspective.

Because I think and believe we’ve been so socialized to drive toward a singular outcome or result in a conversation that we’ve missed the point of most conversation is about exploration and learning. And if we can shift our mindset, and this is where the intention is internally, to, “Did I learn something?” instead of, “Did I convince Uncle Pat that he’s wrong about this particular piece of news or information?” that cuts down on 90% of the roadblock to be able to listen to understand.

Pete Mockaitis
That makes a lot of sense because it’s a much more achievable objective to learn something and understand someone than it is to convince or have a brilliant rebuttal because that will necessarily require substantial cognitive attention to formulate, as opposed to, “Oh, I’m going to understand this person and learn,” then naturally, your brain is pointing itself at them and, hence, facilitating listening.

Katie O’Malley
Yes, exactly. When we try and figure out what we’re going to say next before the other person has even finished speaking, we’ve missed out on some really good information, and probably information that could connect us, right?

And there are moments where moving from a stance of dialogue to debate might be required in a courtroom or in a negotiation. But even then, when you’re demonstrating an intent to really understand somebody, it is very difficult for them to show up in a defensive way.

What usually ends up happening is then they’ll mirror us and try and give us the same space and reciprocity that we gave them. So, after they finish sharing and then you do the recognition part, which we’ll talk about in a second, you can then say, if they haven’t already invited you to, which they already probably have is, “I’m wondering if I can share my perspective on this or my experience with this.”

Because, so often, too, even if it’s not contentious or a debate, where people will default to is, “I’ve had that same experience. I am going to tell them about my experience so that they can now understand a part of me so we can connect.” That’s not connection. You haven’t given them the full dignity of their own experience by recognizing and giving them the dignity of really being seen, which happens in the last part.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. Well, let’s hear about this recognizing and dignity.

Katie O’Malley
Yeah, recognition. So I’m sure you’ve probably heard this, “Therapists get paid to just sit there and nod and listen,” right? Listening is a very active brain activity if you are doing it right and doing it well.

And the goal is to help the other person make meaning of what they’re sharing, help them feel seen and heard, and that you’re making the attempt to understand by offering recognition and by – how do I want to say this? – bearing witness to that moment of their life. We’re social creatures. That’s all we want is to know that we exist and we matter in this realm that we’re living in.

And so, an example that I’ve given before is, your kid comes home from school. You just logged off of back-to-back-to-back Zoom meetings for the last nine hours, and you asked them how their day at school was. They’re telling you, whether or not you’re actually listening and trying to make meaning of it for yourself or for them, might depend on the day.

But what I encourage people to do is be able to summarize what you’ve heard, share an observation of something regarding their body language, their facial expressions, their energy, and finally reflect a feeling back to them.

So it would sound something like this, “Wow, it sounds like you had a very full day at school. But I noticed your face light up when you talked about the experiments that you ran in science class. That experience must have been really interesting for you. Can you tell me more about that?” And just see where they take it, right? Instead of, “Yeah, that sounds like a school day.”

Pete Mockaitis
“That was your school day.”

Katie O’Malley
“Let’s get your shin guards on and hop in the car.” And sometimes people will say, “Katie, I don’t have the time.” I’m like, “Well, you have the time while they’re talking to try and process the information in a new way, and then share back a different sentence to them.”

And they can be telling you about the next thing as you’re getting them ready to go to their activity or do their homework or whatever it might be. And the same holds true with colleagues, partners, friends, it’s just, “My only goal, summarize or paraphrase what I’ve heard. Let them know that I’ve seen them and offer a reflection of feeling.”

Pete Mockaitis
Yes. And what’s interesting about that, it’s so funny, I think that I can sometimes be a little reluctant to do a reflection of feeling or to even say people’s names for whatever reason.

Katie O’Malley
It’s vulnerable, that’s why.

Pete Mockaitis
It’s sort of like, “Well, okay.” Well, lay it on me, Katie, what’s going on? It’s vulnerable for me to say your name?

Katie O’Malley
Because then my attention is going to be directly on you. That’s a choice you’re making.

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, yeah, that’s true. And I am almost a little nervous that if I say a name, it might come across, it’s almost like aggressive or demanding or my tone, because the name is such a special word to us, that my tone might not match how someone wants to have their name said. It’s like, “Actually, the emphasis is more of a KAY-tee as opposed to a kay-TEE. So, Pete, if you don’t mind.”

But great thought. I mean, there’s some counseling in action a level deeper, so there’s vulnerability there. And I think there’s also vulnerability on the emotion side. It’s like, “Ooh, I don’t want to say the wrong emotion,” because it’s like, “You idiot. Did you…? Where were you? Like, why would you take that that way?”

And yet, I think, in practice, and tell us if this is the case, Katie, in practice, I think even if you get the emotion wrong, people appreciate that you identified there was something noteworthy going on there. It’s like, “No, science wasn’t interesting. It was horrifying. Dissecting this animal? Ugh!” You know, it was like, “Oh, well, it was certainly something, and I noticed that it was something,” so you still kind of get some points for that.

Katie O’Malley
You do. And the opportunity to clarify, right, and to keep that person engaged, you’re absolutely right in that you’re going to reflect the wrong feeling. Just accept it. You are at some point. But the purpose isn’t to get the reflection of feeling right. It is one of the most high-level complex skills to be able to practice as a therapist or counselor and get that right.

But what it does is, to your point, shows the other person that you’re making the attempt. And then what they get to do is clarify that for you. And they’re willing to do it because they understand that you’re really making an attempt to understand them, and they’ll keep going. And this is what builds trust and connection.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, you’re right. And I’m thinking about my own experience in therapy contexts with therapists who are supposed to be the best at this, to have misidentified my emotion. And I never walked away thinking, “Oh, my, what a hack.” It advanced the conversation, like, “No, I wasn’t angry. I was scared.” It’s like, “Oh, well, that’s still rich, fertile ground for us to continue pressing into.” So it was valuable having even the wrong emotion reflected.

Katie O’Malley
Because it gives you the opportunity to really consider what you were feeling in that moment. And that’s the piece I think we so often forget as humans, is that we are feeling beings that happen to have a helpful thought every once in a while. But we really fancy ourselves as these incredibly cognitive, thoughtful beings that happen to have a feeling every once in a while.

And the moment that somebody helps us go there, we’re able to reconnect to our own humanity and develop a deeper sense of self-understanding, which, again, vulnerable but also incredibly valuable and a conduit for building trust.

Pete Mockaitis
And a follow-up question, you said it’s, generally, not ideal to share, “Hey, I had that experience, too,” but rather to finish fully listening to the other person and then perhaps asking for that permission. So, it’s interesting the way our free associative brains, particularly this mind, for sure, if someone says something, it sparks something, and then I’m excited about it. And it’s like, “Oh, I could share this because it feels connective to me, but it may not feel connective to them.” Do you have any pro tips for how do I navigate this domain?

Katie O’Malley
One of the things that I think is really important to remember about experience. It is not the shared experience that actually connects us. It is the shared emotion as a result of that experience. And so, oftentimes, because I am a very enthusiastic, energetic person, and I struggle with this when someone shares an experience and I’ve had a similar one.

What I’ll say is, “There’s something I want to come back to but, first, here’s what I heard. Am I following? Am I tracking?” And then it’ll be that invitation again from that person, “Oh, what was that thing you wanted to share?” And you can say, “Oh, I had a similar experience to you in this particular domain. For me, it kicked up a lot of worry and anxiety. But, for you, seemed to kick up excitement. Can you talk more about that?”

And, again, going back to that reflection of feeling piece. And it’s not so that we can diagnose and pathologize folks, but that is where true connection happens. Because to recognize the feeling that we’ve had around an experience, requires us to be vulnerable and access that, to then be able to reflect it back to somebody else and share that is what creates the connection and invitation to keep going a level deeper.

Pete Mockaitis
That’s a really good distinction. It’s the shared emotion instead of the shared experience providing the connection. So, if you had an experience and then that happened to me, too, it’s almost like, “Okay.” It’s like, “That’s not doing much for me.” But it is when it’s like, “Oh, yeah. Emotionally, you really understand.”

And in a way, it could be a completely different experience, but it’s a shared emotions. It’s like, “Ah, yes. I, too, was very excited about an opportunity that, unfortunately, did not come to pass. And so, I know, I’ve experienced that disappointment vibe and then it almost makes you wonder about blah, blah, blah.” Like, “Yes, exactly, that’s how I feel in this moment. Thank you.”

And so, I hear what you’re saying, is that that’s much more connecting there, and to wait instead of like, “Well, back to me and my stuff.”

Katie O’Malley
Exactly, because then it’s very clear to them you haven’t been listening. You went off into your own little world of your experience instead of staying with them in that moment.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. Well, Katie, tell us, anything else you want to make sure to mention before we hear about some of your favorite things?

Katie O’Malley
I did a TEDx Talk on this back in June, so you can give it a Google, the, “Attention We Give: Lessons From Listening for a Living.” Test it out. Practice some self-compassion. You’re not going to be great at it when you start. Nobody is. But when we put in the effort to do this for others, it’s only going to enrich our relationships and experiences as we move through the world.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. Well, now, Katie, could you share a favorite quote, something you find inspiring?

Katie O’Malley
One of my favorite quotes is, “Chance favors the connected mind,” to be able to seize an opportunity, right, because you’ve done the work of reflection and self-understanding to know that this is an opportunity for you.

Pete Mockaitis
Yeah. Well, it’s funny, I was taking that a completely different way in terms of, when you’re making connections in your mind about a thing, and you encounter stimuli in the context of having reflected upon that thing, it serves as an idea, or inspiration, potential solution, and it feels like a huge lucky break.

Katie O’Malley
Yeah, that, too.

Pete Mockaitis
So, yeah, multiple, multiple layers there. Okay.

Katie O’Malley
Multiple interpretations.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. And a favorite book?

Katie O’Malley
Timequake by Kurt Vonnegut.

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

Katie O’Malley
I love a notebook, a good notebook, and a pen. There’s nothing better than the mind-body connection of writing something down instead of letting AI take our notes for us.

Pete Mockaitis
Yes. And is there a key nugget you share that really seems to connect and resonate with folks, they quote it back to you often?

Katie O’Malley
“We are humans that happen to work. We are not workers who happen to be human.”

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

Katie O’Malley
EncourageCoaching.org, or you can find me on Instagram, encouragecoachchicago. Great to go there if you’re ready to rage quit your job, for some funny content or cute videos of my dog.

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

Katie O’Malley
Get on the listening train and pick one of the elements of the AIR formula this week to practice just one at a time and stack it.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. 

Feb 02
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1125: How to Reclaim Your Presence, Increase Your Influence, and Build Relationships that Last with Ravi Rajani

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Ravi Rajani shows you how to build meaningful relationships, one conversation at a time.

You’ll Learn

  1. The Three C’s of building trust
  2. What makes people say, “Tell me more”
  3. Why compliments come across as insincere

About Ravi 

Ravi Rajani is an international keynote speaker, transformational coach and LinkedIn Learning instructor, with over 65,000 people having taken his courses on Conscious and Charismatic Communication. Widely seen as one of the world’s top communication experts, mission-driven leaders, entrepreneurs and organizations such as Oracle NetSuite, T-Mobile, and Sherwin-Williams have engaged Ravi to help them and their people become masterful communicators so they can build meaningful relationships that amplify revenue growth and cultivate a culture of trust.

Off stage or camera, Ravi lives just outside of London, UK, with his wife, son, daughter and furry little West Highland Terrier. He loves the movie Limitless, a good stand-up comedian and a quintessentially British suit.

Resources Mentioned

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Ravi Rajani Interview Transcript

Pete Mockaitis
Ravi, welcome!

Ravi Rajani
You nailed the name. You nailed it.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, I practiced.

Ravi Rajani
First, there wasn’t even, like, “Cut. We’re going to have to run that back.” You nailed it. And because of that, I’m feeling good, I’m feeling great.

Pete Mockaitis
Thank you. Well, maybe that’s our first communication habit, perhaps, for limitless influence right there, say people’s names right.

Ravi Rajani
Yes.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, I’m excited to dig into your wisdom about relationships, the communication, and influence. So could you kick us off with a particularly surprising and fascinating discovery you’ve made about us humans and communication over the course of your career studying this stuff?

Ravi Rajani
The one that rings the most true for me right now is us humans spend a lot of time trying to be interesting versus leading with trying to be interested in the human being opposite us.

Now, for credit, Dale Carnegie said something along the lines of, to be interesting, be interested. And I do find that the more conversations I have with others, especially in the noisy world we live in today, which can create a lack of clarity and all of the side effects that manifest as a result of that, we can be busy, we can be running from meeting to meeting. And as a result, we lack presence.

And when we lack presence, we can often revert to, “Okay, reactive behavior.” And the way I look at reactive behavior is pulled from the spiritual wisdom of Kabbalah, which is any behavior that is grounded in lack, scarcity, or fear. So, me, meeting you, and leading with my accolades, awards, and credentials would be a form of reactive behavior. And that’s me trying to be interesting in the hope you will find me interesting.

But, actually, what I really should lead with is asking impactful, meaningful, and genuine questions. For me, I found that to be one of the most impactful ways to begin building rapport and meaningful relationship. But what about you, because you’ve had a lot of people on this show? What have you seen?

Pete Mockaitis
Yeah, well, I think that’s a really fun and solid one right there. And I liked the part you said about trying to be interesting. The word trying, just sort of the effort level required because it’s, in some ways, it’s much simpler to make eye contact, ask some questions, as opposed to, “Oh, yes, I was studying for my sommelier exam.” It’s like, “Oh, that sounds hard to, like, do stuff to be interesting.” Whereas if you’re just interested in people, then that’ll get the job done easier and feel better to them.

Ravi Rajani
Right. I mean, isn’t it hard to figure out what somebody cares about if you are dominating a conversation, doing all the talking?

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, sure.

Ravi Rajani
And, really, when we figure out what somebody cares about in this season of their life, that builds a beautiful foundation for a meaningful business relationship, and in life as well. But, yes, my friend, I subscribe to what you’re saying. I subscribe to what you’re saying.

Pete Mockaitis
Lovely. Well, so you got this book, Relationship Currency, what’s the big idea here?

Ravi Rajani
Well, the big idea is that, in a world obsessed with automation without intention, conversations that lack connection, and also growth without introspection, leaders, teams, entrepreneurs, and professionals are really engaging in short-term behavior that kills our long-term reputation.

And what I believe, more than ever before, is what we’re craving is human connection. We’re craving human connection, and we’re craving real relationships grounded in trust. And this book teaches five habits which will help people communicate in a way that builds trust in a conversation and earns meaningful relationship so they can receive more of what they desire in the long term.

Pete Mockaitis
That sounds handy. Tell us, what are a few super common short-term behaviors that kill long-term relationships that you see all the time?

Ravi Rajani
Well, tell me, I’m curious, from your perspective, in the arena of business, what is your pet peeve when it comes to conversations which you know are grounded in, let’s go back to the concept of reactive behavior, lack, scarcity, fear, short-termism?

Pete Mockaitis
Well, the first thing that comes to mind for pet peeve and business conversations is customer service things, in terms of, if I’m making a call to a company because I have a need, then it’s pretty drastic, right?

Like, I couldn’t ask the AI chat bots. I couldn’t find it on your website. I even used the Google and site colon website name. I mean, I need to talk to a real human who knows something about the thing by the time I call. And yet, they’re going to every length possible to push me away from having a real human who knows the stuff, talk to the thing.

It seems frequently. And, of course, some businesses do this excellently, but that was my first thought. Like, I saw that I had a package that couldn’t be delivered because they had to have a signature. I saw the email just before we got here, I was like, “Oh, boy, that’s going to be a process.” It’s, like, I think that’s probably my top pet peeve is that.

Well, if you talk about short term behavior, I guess it’s a matter of the organization, because I’ve worked with call centers before. The organization is looking to minimize costs as much as possible in terms of, like, dealing with all those customers and their issues. And so, yeah, the biggest pet peeve is customer service interactions with businesses.

Ravi Rajani
Isn’t it funny that when a company is trying to reduce costs, they forget at what cost? And it’s funny, you know, Pete, I had this experience just recently. So, I bought some electrolytes and amino acid supplements from a company here in the UK six months ago. And I recently realized, I was like, “I never received that package, yet they said it was delivered.”

So I dropped them an email, thinking that, “Nothing’s really going to happen here, but let’s see.” And it was incredible, the service. A human on the other end, emailing me fast, saying, “Hey, we want to make this right. This didn’t work out. Fill in this form really quickly, we’ve done most of it for you. We’ll get one out to you.”

Literally, I filled that form out two days ago and the supplements arrived today. And they’re like, “We’re really sorry for your inconvenience.” I’m now a customer for life. But I went into that being skeptical about if I would be a customer again. Within 48 hours, I’m now a customer for life.

And it’s so funny how these imperfect moments are actually gifts and opportunities for connection. Yet, as a society, we run away from imperfection. But actually, to be perfect would be denying our humanity. It’s just a funny world we live in.

Pete Mockaitis
That’s good. And, well, now I’m thinking about business in terms of, if you look at, in the universe of sales and marketing, folks can spend great sums to shout out to the universe, “Hey, somebody, maybe, please pay attention to us,” and they’re delighted if, I don’t know, one in a thousand people who hear an ad, you know, click or take some sort of an action.

And then, yet when you’re actually in there, it’s like, “Here I am. I showed up. I gave you money. I could be delighted and won over forever.” It’s like, “Nah.”

Ravi Rajani 
Right? The best way to explain it, as I see it through my lens, is nightclubs. Back in the day, nightclubs were a thing. And you would see certain nightclubs, the queues would be, it would feel like a mile long. You’d look at it and you’d go, “Damn, Pete, that looks awesome.” You wait in the queue for one hour.

Pete Mockaitis
“It must be cool if there’s a line.”

Ravi Rajani
It must be cool. It must be great. There’s a line, it must be good. One hour goes by, “Oh, it’s cold outside. But you know what? It’s going to be worth it.” Two hours goes by, you get to the front, and you’re like, “Oh, yes, I’m about to go in,” and you get there, it’s empty. The service is subpar. The drinks are awful. You see what I mean?

And I feel like we live in a world where we are prioritizing width over depth. We really are. And a big part of this book is coming back to a world where we prioritize depth.

Pete Mockaitis
Yeah, and I think that example is fun with regard to, you said there’s a line and then you get in and it’s empty, you’re like, “Oh, wait,” because then you know, and I remember there was a bar when I went to college, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, there was a bar that pulled this stunt all the time.

And it just made me hate them because as soon as you enter, it’s like, “Oh, I guess I was lied to. You were not actually at capacity. You just wanted to deceive us, you know, to create an illusion.”

And I think that it’s quite common to have just little…It seems like, in marketing, for example, we’re not outright lied to, but we’re misled. It’s like, “Okay, technically your AI software product can sort of, kind of, do the thing that you say it can, but, really, it doesn’t actually save any time for the purpose for which you’re marketing it in a real-world scenario.”

So I feel, like, that’s the case with a lot of things, it’s like, “I’m not getting a full-blown lie. Like, being told yes when it’s really no. But there’s key omissions that allow me…” there’s probably a great word for this. Is it dissemble? I don’t remember the word. To be led, to be very deliberately said a number of things that lead me to infer that which you want me to infer, though you know it is not entirely true. There’s got to be a word for that.

Ravi Rajani
There must be. I mean, I don’t have one for it, but what is coming up, Pete?

Pete Mockaitis
But it ain’t honest. It ain’t honest, it ain’t candid, it doesn’t make me trust.

Ravi Rajani
Well, the key word there, like you said, trust. So how I see it, is trust, yes, is a buzzword overused by politicians, business leaders, companies, marketers, the list goes on.

But I’ve been really thinking for some time about, “How does one establish trust?” And when I tapped into my intuition, my story, and my experiences, I came up with something called the three Cs, the three C’s of trust. And when we earn that, we’re to earn trust, so the first C is connection. The second C is character. The third C is competence. So let’s take a look at each of them.

So connection, for me, is the emotional glue that forges a bond between two human beings. Then you have character, which is the invisible values which travel with your energy, verbal communication, and nonverbal communication. And then, we have competence, which is one’s ability to signal their ability to solve somebody’s problem and, ultimately, increase or decrease their credibility stock.

And we live in a world where, “Okay, I’m going to connect with you. I’m going to pitch you the right story.” “Great, I’m bought in.” But now, like you said in your example, I haven’t really received what I paid for, per se. So, actually, I don’t believe you have a character of integrity. Done.

Now, even if you connect with somebody, and they can solve your problem, but they have a shady character, are you going to be in business with them for long? No. Even if you connect with somebody and they’ve got great character, but they’re just likable, but they can’t solve your problem, that’s only going to get you so far. I mean, you could play this in several ways, but you see where I’m going. You really need all three singing and dancing at the same time.

Pete Mockaitis
Yeah, I like that a lot. It’s catchy, easy to remember, and it’s in order. It was like, first, “I like this guy.” Second, it was like, “Okay, it seems like they’re being straight and direct and following through, just like the way they said they would. And sure enough, they’re getting it done nicely. I like what I see in terms of the product service delivered on the other side. That’s cool.” So you’ve also got five communication habits. Could you run us through these?

Ravi Rajani
Yes, so habit one is transform your story. Habit two is ask conscious questions. Habit three is unearth your charisma. Habit four is tell stories that inspire change. And habit five is become the trusted guide.

Pete Mockaitis
I love this. Now, can you tell me, if I develop and do these five things well, what will happen for me? What kinds of results? Could you share a cool story to illustrate?

Ravi Rajani
Magical things, Pete. But the way I see it is, when one is able to embody these five habits, and by the way, it doesn’t happen overnight. Unfortunately, there are no shortcuts, magic bullets, quick fixes. This is a process where you ascend the competence ladder until you get to unconscious competence.

But really, the outcome of this is, once again, being able to build a meaningful relationship through communicating for trust, and the outcome being, yes, increased revenue, yes, leadership growth, but a culture of trust and an environment where people actually want to belong, which is important.

Pete Mockaitis
That sounds good. Well, can I hear a story of someone who did just that, that they saw a transformation when they started doing this stuff?

Ravi Rajani
Okay, let’s talk about a specific transformation that happened to me. Let’s talk about this, okay? So, this, by the way, connects to habit number three, which is unearth your charisma. But let’s start with this.

So I believe that we have charisma all wrong in society. I believe I had charisma all wrong for many, many years because I used to think, Pete, it was about receiving accolades, awards, being the smoothest talker, being in the spotlight, etc.

Now, I’ve got to thank my younger self for doing the best he could with the awareness that he had at the time, but how I look at it now is an innate superpower that allows somebody to feel significant in our presence, meaning communicating in the way that makes somebody feel like they matter.

And inside of the book, something I talk about is how imperfection equals connection and how it can break down barriers. So get this, I can’t remember the exact year, but I have a feeling it was like summer ‘22, summer 2023.

But, anyway, I’m on a Zoom call with the COO of a SaaS company headquartered in Singapore. Now, he had heard me speak, you know, a couple of months back, Pete. So, he has some context on me. I had very little context on him.

So we kicked off the call. We get the corporate niceties out of the way. And I see a picture in his background, and I thought, “Okay, what a beautiful opportunity to build rapport.” So I say, “Oh, hey, man, that picture over there, oh, that’s an incredible picture of your daughters over there. How old are they?”

Thought nothing of it. I hear a pause. And he’s confused. He looks back and he looks at me. He looks back again, but this time his head is stuck looking at the wall and I’m thinking, “Is this dude going to turn around?” And he slowly turns his head around, but this time he’s smiling like a Cheshire cat, and he says, “Ravi, that’s not my daughter. That’s my wife.”

Okay. So I’m squirming, right? I’m squirming like a looney tune, and I’m thinking, “I’ve blown this. This sucks, oh, my gosh. That’s all folks,” right? That sort of energy. The best thing happened. It instantly humanized the conversation. It instantly broke down barriers, and that conversation went on for an hour long, an hour plus long. And we really deeply connected.
And here’s what happened at the end. He said, “Hey, I’d love for you to come in and deliver a storytelling workshop for our sales and customer success team. Are we doing it?” I said, “Yeah, let’s do it.” And here’s the thing, here’s what I find, Pete, is so much of the time through life, we try and deflect imperfect moments, cover them up, already shy away from owning our mistakes.

And I’m finding, more so than ever before, that when you feel or see a mistake appearing, pause, smile, and say, “This is a gift. This is a gift,” and use that imperfect moment as an opportunity to showcase your humanity, because, otherwise, we can just end up being corporate robots.

Pete Mockaitis
Yeah, that’s well said because it feels so rare that someone, especially if you’re proactive, in terms of, like, if they let you know about the mistake in advance, like, “Hey, just so you know, unfortunately, we made this mistake. We’re so sorry. Here’s how we’re going to fix it.” You’re almost taken aback, like, “Oh, okay. Well, understood. Thanks for letting me know.”

And then it’s like, “All right, I know this person is not trying to hide something.” It’s a good feeling. So, lovely. I hear you that that is a great trust builder and we can feel better about mistakes as a result, as they come about. Well, could you then share with us a couple of your top tips or perspectives for putting these five habits into practice?

Ravi Rajani
Yeah, you know, each habit has a practice. And the idea is, when you engage in the practice, you’re engaging in a new behavior, which substitutes an existing behavior. And when you engage in that behavior long enough, what will happen, a proportion of those behaviors will turn into habits, hopefully positive habits, which point towards the North Star that you care about in this season of your life.

Now, one of the most popular practices sits inside of habit two. So habit two is about asking conscious questions, Pete. And, by the way, when I say conscious, what I’m talking about is asking questions that are grounded in positive intentionality.

Now, when I say positive intentionality, there’s a difference, Pete, between me asking you a question because I’m secretly trying to lead you to a product or service that benefits my bank balance at the expense of yours, versus asking you a question that’s designed to actually get to the heart of your truth. So that’s really what we’re talking about here.

Now, there are different types of conscious questions that I teach, but one of them I’d love to share now is empathetic questions. Now, empathy, a bit of a buzzword, let’s be real, so let’s define it. How I see it is being interested in what somebody is emotionally invested in, in this season of their life, aka, as we said at the top of the show, caring about what somebody else cares about.

How do we show that? Because I can tell you, Pete, “My friend, I care about you. I care about what you care about.” And it’s like, “Okay, cool, show me.” How do you show somebody without shoving it down their throat? Well, I’d like to introduce you to what I call the what, feel, who method.

So picture this. Okay, you’re a leader. You’re busy. It’s a noisy world. Meeting to meeting to meeting and you’re late for a follow-up meeting with a new team member. You walk into the room, you slam the door, you’ve got a sandwich in your mouth and you say the following words, you say, “Ah, hey, Pete, how are you?”

Harmless, but here’s my truth, they’re lazy. That’s lazy. It’s unintentional. It’s unintentional and it’s lazy. What we’re looking to do is build depth and intimacy in a relationship. So the what, feel, who method. Instead, what I could say is, “Pete, the last time we spoke, you mentioned that you and your wife were moving home, but you were feeling super stressed because your daughter was feeling really unhappy about the change. How has she settled in?”

All of a sudden, you are sharing a story with me about how things are in your personal life. I’m showing you that I care about what you care about by remembering what’s important to you in this season of your life, moving home, how you felt about it, stressed, and who it’s impacting, your daughter. I’m showing you that I care, that I have empathy without shoving it down your throat.

Now, that is, for me, anyway, so much more potent and powerful than, “Hey, how are you?”

Pete Mockaitis
Well, yeah, absolutely. Yeah, that’s good. And it’s interesting how it’s easy to do and it’s easy not to do exactly this, because you’ve heard that’s what’s going on in someone’s life, and yet, in the course of living our own lives, when we re-encounter that person, it just doesn’t seem that top of mind.

But it’s quite possible to, I don’t know, take notes, have a pause before you begin the conversations, to say, “What is probably important to this person right now in the background?” It’s like, “Oh, of course. Well, they had that big date, you know? Their kid went away to college.”

And so it’s, like, it takes, for me at least, a stop-and-prompt-myself moment to actually execute that because I have found myself in so many conversations, where someone brings up the thing that they brought about their life that they had brought up previously. It was like, “Oh, jeez. Duh, I should have asked you about that.” So, yeah, it’s easy to do, it’s easy not to do.

Ravi Rajani
It is. My question to somebody who’s feeling that way is, “If it was working for you, you wouldn’t still be listening. You wouldn’t still be listening to this part of the show.” So, I often feel there can be resistance around trying something new.

And here’s what I would say to the listener is, look, this is my truth. It doesn’t have to be your truth, but try it on for size.

Pete Mockaitis
Do you get pushback when you suggest people do this? Because it sounds like, “Duh, of course, we should all do this, but we just forget. So maybe be conscientious and thoughtful about not forgetting.” But are you telling me people say, “Oh, Ravi, I could never do that.” Like, what’s that resistance sound like?

Ravi Rajani
Well, the resistance doesn’t sound like that. It’s a lot more subtle, I find. And it’s not necessarily related to this specific practice and habit, but, in general, what I find is when the cost of making change outweighs the cost of just staying as is, aka, the status quo, people are happy to sit in the status quo. So when you introduce something new that challenges their way of doing things, their viewpoint of the world and belief, you can often get resistance, right?

And it could be through disengagement in a workshop, you know, a corporate workshop where somebody may not have actually paid out of their own wallet to be there, right? Their leader’s paid, they’re getting told, “You should come in here.” They’re like, “Ah, I don’t want to listen to this. I don’t want to try this,” or whatever it could be, “I don’t want to try something new.”

And really, what we’re, I believe, anyway, that we’re selling, whether you’re selling a product, a service, an idea, or a vision, you’re actually selling change. You’re asking somebody to depart from a current set of behaviors and adopt new ones. And that is hard. If change were easy, my friend, everybody would stick to their New Year’s resolutions.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. Thank you. Well, I’ve also got to hear, you’ve got a tip for pitching yourself in 12 seconds. What’s the story here?

Ravi Rajani
Oh, gosh, where did you get that? Where did you get that? That’s brilliant! Where did you get that from? Is that AI?

Pete Mockaitis
We stalked you for hours. We stalked you for hours before we have this conversation.

Ravi Rajani
Did AI stalk me or something? Because that’s brilliant.

Pete Mockaitis
No, human beings.

Ravi Rajani
Wow, I like that.

Pete Mockaitis
Shout out to my team, yeah.

Ravi Rajani
Kudos. Kudos to the team. Okay, cool. So there’s something I don’t even talk about in the book, but it’s something called the magnetic message. And some of you will be thinking, “What are you talking about?” Let’s take it back to when Steve Jobs first released the iPod.

Now, he didn’t come out on stage and pitch the features and the functionality of the product. No. He did something different. He said something along the lines of, it’s like having a thousand songs in your pocket, “Rah! Rah!” That’s the crowd going wild, right? And it became viral worthy. I don’t even know if virality was a thing there, but if it was, he would have gone viral.

Now, that’s a metaphor. What I’m talking about with the magnetic message is something which embodies that energy, but through an analogy. So, a couple of years back, I was working with a SaaS company in the US, and for one area of their business, they worked with product leaders. And if I had to describe what they help them with in one word, it would be innovation.

But they can’t go to events, well, they can if they want to, I wouldn’t suggest it, but they can’t really go to events and say, “Well, we help product leaders with innovation,” right?

Or, we can’t say, “Well, on this one fine day in 2006, our founder…” like you can’t lead with a story. We need to earn the opportunity to share a story. So how do we do that? By sharing a 12-second magnetic message, aka, an analogy.

And one that I came up with for this team is, “So, you know how Blockbuster struggled to innovate and just allowed Netflix to crush them? Well, what we do is help product leaders prevent their company from becoming the next Blockbuster.”

Pete Mockaitis
I love that Blockbuster example because it’s really emotionally resonant and reminds me of Vince Gilligan, who’s my favorite show is “Breaking Bad.” He’s got these high-concept pitches, like, “Breaking Bad” is, “I’m going to take Mr. Chips and turn him into Scarface.” Or, “Pluribus is the most miserable person on earth must save the world from happiness.” And it just makes you go, “Huh, what? I got to know all about that.”

Ravi Rajani
Isn’t that brilliant? Like, that’s something that punchy, because you are really, what you’re trying to do is earn the following question, “Tell me more.” You know, I worked with a hotel, a large hotel group last year, and they were thinking about how can they pitch their wedding venues.

And one thing that we came up with was comparing it to flying on a first-class flight and how everything is taken care of so you can focus on the journey, really, and the thing that really matters the most. And we created an analogy around that, that’s sticky. It’s universal. It hits.

And, really, with that Blockbuster analogy, what it’s really grounded in is something which every human being can relate to, which is a fear of being left behind. Nobody wanted to be left behind in the tribe back in the day, right? So a fear of being left behind, a lack of evolution, we can all relate to that. So. for me, anyway, that’s how I look at it, often entering a conversation with something like that.

Pete Mockaitis
You’re right. It’s like… It’s the difference between conceptual, theoretical, talking about something versus, “Oh, yeah, I understand.” It’s, like, we’re connecting to stuff that’s already nicely lodged in our brains and has some emotion. Like a product manager is like, “I don’t want to be like Blockbuster,” you know, or, it’s like, “Oh, I remember Mr. Chips and I remember Scarface, and, whoa, that’d be a crazy transformation,” right?

So, we’re sort of latching onto some embedded emotional associations and language that’s really meaningful. Whereas, sometimes, when I see kind of corporate speak is sort of like, “Well, we provide a diverse array of advisory services for the mid-tier business leaders.” It’s like, “Huh?” As opposed to, you know, “We make sure you don’t run out of cash.” It’s like, “Oh, yeah, we’re worried about that. That sounds helpful. Tell me more.”

Ravi Rajani
I hear you, my friend. And I also feel as though there is a journey with that. Often, we have to start with the corporate spiel to get to realize this is not connecting to eventually get to something which is a little bit spicier. So what else you got up your sleeve, because that was a good question? What else you got up your sleeve? I’m curious now.

Pete Mockaitis
Certainly. I would like to hear about your thoughts on compliments and awkwardness.

Ravi Rajani
I love how you say awkwardness, okay? Here’s how I see it. So, interestingly, there’s a dude called Professor Norihiro Sadato. And in his piece of research, he found that when we receive a compliment, it actually activates the same part of our brain that lights up when we receive a financial reward. Cool, huh?

So compliments are great. Compliments work, but don’t be Mr. Creepy and start giving too many compliments, inauthentic compliments, inappropriate compliments, and say, “Yeah, Ravi told me to do it.” Don’t weaponize what I’m about to share. Okay, disclaimer.

So I could say to Pete, “Great presentation. Good presentation.” Great intention, but the delivery lacks, once again, intimacy and depth. Or, I could say, “Pete, that was one of the most impactful presentations I’ve heard at this trade show, literally all day.”

“In the first three minutes, when you shared that personal story about imposter syndrome as a new CEO and how you overcame it, wow, that was super powerful. And you know what, funny enough, you’ve actually got me thinking about how to use more personal stories in my own presentations. Thank you for that.”

So, the difference there is what I called the ASI framework. The second compliment had authenticity, specificity and impact. Authenticity, what I’m talking about here is leading with a genuinely positive observation. S is specificity, so avoid being generic. And I is impact, sharing how this specific moment has impacted you personally.

Pete Mockaitis
Absolutely. That’s all the difference between great speech and the real deal. That’s good. All right. Well, tell me, Ravi, anything else you want to make sure to mention before we hear about some of your favorite things?

Ravi Rajani
I’m very excited about the audio book of this book. I don’t know why I just felt like saying that. But anyway, hit me with these questions. You’ve asked incredible questions today. So I’m looking forward to some curve balls.

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, sure. Well, it’s pretty straightforward. Tell me about a favorite quote, something you find inspiring.

Ravi Rajani
Okay, so are you a Christopher Nolan fan? Batman? I mean, Batman?

Pete Mockaitis
Absolutely. Among the best. Among the best.

Ravi Rajani 
Incredible. Incredible. So, Bruce, aka Christian Bale, is on his jet with his butler, Alfred, and he says, “People need dramatic examples to shake them out of apathy. And I can’t do that as Bruce Wayne. As a man, I’m flesh, I’m blood, I can be ignored, I can be destroyed, but as a symbol, as a symbol, I can be everlasting.”

Pete Mockaitis
All right. And a favorite book?

Ravi Rajani
Let me give you one which I haven’t finished yet, but Essentialism by Greg McKeown. So love the idea of less is better.

Pete Mockaitis
And a favorite tool?

Ravi Rajani
I’ve recently been digging deeper into Claude AI and I’m liking it.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. And a favorite habit?

Ravi Rajani
Telling stories that inspire change, aka, habit four inside of the book.

Pete Mockaitis
And is there a key nugget you share that folks really connect and resonate with and they end up quoting back to you often or retweeting, etc?

Ravi Rajani
One I’m hearing recently is, I’ve heard recently, was “The depth of your questions dictates the depth of your relationships.”

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

Ravi Rajani
Where I hang out the most right now is LinkedIn. So what I’d love to know is, if you are listening to this right now, drop me a DM and let me know what impacted you the most in this episode. I’d love to know.

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

Ravi Rajani
Well, if you are looking to be awesome at your job, I’m biased, but I will say learning how to communicate with influence should be high on your priority list.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. Ravi, thank you.

Ravi Rajani
Thank you, my friend.

Jan 29
0

1124: How to Build Hope and Combat Burnout at Work with Jen Fisher

By | Podcasts | No Comments

Jen Fisher discusses the strategic value of hope—and how leaders can harness it to improve wellbeing and transform the workplace.

You’ll Learn

  1. Why hope is a valid strategy in the workplace
  2. How a few words can kill or build hope
  3. How to counter your brain’s tendency to be overly critical

About Jen 

Jen Fisher is a global authority on workplace wellbeing, the bestselling author of Work Better Together, and the founder and CEO of The Wellbeing Team.

As Deloitte US’s first chief wellbeing officer, she pioneered a groundbreaking, human-centered approach to work that gained international recognition and reshaped how organizations view wellbeing. 

Jen is also the creator and host of The WorkWell Podcast, a TEDx speaker, and a sought-after voice at events like Workhuman, SXSW, Milken Global Conference, and Happiness Camp. 

At the heart of Jen’s work is the knowledge that hope is not just a feeling—it’s a strategic imperative. She helps leaders harness hope as a catalyst for cultural transformation, guiding them to reimagine work as a force for human flourishing. She lives in Miami with her husband, Albert, and their dog, Fiona.

Resources Mentioned

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Jen Fisher Interview Transcript

Pete Mockaitis
Jen, welcome!

Jen Fisher
Thanks for having me.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, I’m excited to dig into your wisdom and to hear about hope. Could you share with us, for starters, an extra surprising and fascinating discovery you’ve made about hope as you’ve researched it?

Jen Fisher
I would say that hope is not an emotion, which most people think that it is. It’s a cognitive process. It’s not whimsical. It’s not wishful thinking. It’s not positive vibes only. As a matter of fact, many, many times hope is hard. And I would also say that hope is a daily practice and, obviously, I believe that hope is a strategy.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. Well, so it’s not an emotion, it’s not positive vibes only, you said it’s a cognitive. Well, what is it exactly?

Jen Fisher
So, what the research shows, so C.R. Snyder is kind of the original, if you will, godfather of hope research, and what he and so many others have found about hope and why many of us say that it is a cognitive process and that hope is a strategy, is because real and realistic hope actually requires action. It requires three things from you.

It requires you to identify and set a goal, so to know where you want to go or know where you want to be. It requires, and this is perhaps the most important, that you identify multiple ways or pathways in which you can reach that goal. And so it’s not just one, it’s multiple ways. And then the final thing is that it requires you to understand and to know what your agency is in reaching that goal. And so, what is your ability to actually do something to get from here to there?

And so that’s why it requires action and what makes it a cognitive process and what makes it a strategy is because you actually have to not just think about it, not just put good vibes only out into the world, or say, “I’m going to win the lottery,” but you actually have to do something about it and you have to have the ability to do something about it.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay, so it requires setting a goal, identifying multiple pathways, understanding our capabilities and how this is viable. And so, if I’ve done those things, I’m having an experience as a result of having done so. Is that what we’re calling hope?

Jen Fisher
That’s what we’re calling hope. That is what hope theory says. And I will tell you what hope theory also says. Hope theory and hope does not guarantee success. And that’s why I say hope is hard, right? Because sometimes you do all these things, you have all of this hope, and then things don’t work out the way that you want them to.

But I think what’s really great about hope is, you know those multiple pathways that you identified? If you start down one path and it doesn’t work, well, you’ve already identified other ways in which you can reach your goal so you don’t get stuck.

You kind of say, “Okay, well, that was interesting. It didn’t work. But, look, I have these other ways in which I can potentially reach this goal.” But hope does not guarantee success. Hope will let you down but it is still critically important.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. So, if I do those things, I’m having an experience that you call hope, but it’s not an emotion. So I don’t know if you want to get all dictionary or textbook-y, but so then what precisely is hope?

Jen Fisher
Hope is a strategy. It’s a cognitive process. It requires that process in order for it to be hope. When it comes to emotions, hope can spur positive emotions. It can create positive emotions. It can also potentially create negative emotions, but hope itself is not an emotion.

Pete Mockaitis
So, if I set a goal, I’d identified multiple pathways, I understand I’ve got capabilities that could get her done, but if I still have a lot of doubt and pessimism and think, “This probably won’t work,” do I have hope?

Jen Fisher
You could, yes. I mean, look, I think those things can coexist. I would say, what makes hope unique is that it requires you to take action. So you could be pessimistic or you could believe that it’s not going to work, but if you’re still taking action towards the goal on the off chance that it could work, then, yeah, you do have hope.

But, look, I think hope can coexist with doubt. Hope can coexist with hopelessness. Hope can coexist with despair. It can coexist with other things that are seemingly its opposite, just like many things. Most things in our life can coexist with other things that are seemingly its opposite, but what hope requires is action.

And so, if you were moving towards that goal, regardless of whether or not you think it’s going to work, you do have some hope that it’s going to work. Otherwise, you wouldn’t be moving, continuing to move towards that goal because what’s the point?

Pete Mockaitis
And so, can you tell us, maybe, what’s the opposite of hope or how prevalent is hope at work?

Jen Fisher
Well, I don’t think that hope at work is very prevalent, and that was the reasoning and the rationale behind my book. I proffer in my book that I actually believe a lot of what we are seeing and talking about and experiencing in the workplace, when it comes to workplace burnout, is actually an epidemic of hopelessness.

And so, hopelessness exists when you don’t believe that tomorrow can be better than today, when you don’t believe that your actions or what you’re doing matters, or when you don’t believe that you are valued in the workplace. And I think that those are experiences that, unfortunately, a lot of people have, which drive workplace hopelessness.

And I think we often look at that as disengagement, we look at that as burnout, but I actually think that it’s hopelessness. It’s people kind of throwing their hands up, and saying, “Well, nothing I do matters,” or, “Nothing here is ever going to change, so why even try?” And in my experience and my conversations with many, many people, that seems to be the sentiment of what is happening.

And so, I think kind of this opposite, if you will, of hope or hopeful workplaces is workplaces that are hopeless or disengaged or there’s just a lot of people, you know, quiet quitting, pick your favorite buzzword about what’s going on in the workplace today, and I think you can link a lot of that back to people are just kind of feeling hopeless.

And that ties to why I say hope is a strategy because, when I talk to leaders, when I talk to anybody who is trying to effect big change or change at all in the workplace through workplace transformations, leadership changes, strategy changes, all of this constant change that’s going on in the workplace, and they say, “Really, Jen? Like, really, you want me to create a hopeful workplace? You think that hope is a strategy?”

And I say, “Yeah, I do, because good luck with your strategy if nobody believes in it, if nobody gets on board, if nobody thinks that your strategy is going to make tomorrow better than today, then you’re not going to achieve your strategy, because you have to be able to bring people along with you.”

And that’s why I’m not saying hope is the only strategy, but I’m saying that hope is a strategy because people need to feel hopeful about where they are and where they’re going in order to really show up and be engaged and innovate and do all the great things that we want people to do in the workplace, but they’re just not feeling it right now.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, if we think about hopelessness then, it sort of sounds like, from that angle or facet, hope seems to be sort of like a set of beliefs. Is that fair to say?

Jen Fisher
Yeah, I think that’s fair to say.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, so in that sense, then if hope is a set of beliefs, then that set of beliefs would certainly be bolstered by doing just those things – set the goal, identifying multiple pathways and understanding your capabilities and how those can flow into making that unfold. Very cool. Well, maybe could you give us a story perhaps of someone who wasn’t feeling so hopeful, but they adopted some of these approaches and saw a turnaround?

Jen Fisher
Well, I think that probably the easiest story would be my own story and why hope has become so important to me, part of my leadership ethos, how I lead, but, quite frankly, how I live my life. And so, if you rewind where I was 10, 11 years ago, I was in a state of complete burnout. And this is before we were talking about burnout and well-being in the workplace in the ways that we are now.

And so, I didn’t know what I was experiencing. I knew I was struggling. I worked in a high-performing organization. I looked around, everyone around me seemed to be doing just fine. So I just kept telling myself, “I’m going to push through. This will eventually go away if I just keep pushing harder, pushing harder, pushing harder.”

Well, that never works. It might work for a period of time, but that never works. And so, ultimately, I ended up completely burnt out to the point where I had to take a leave of absence from work. I had to really focus on getting healthy and well, both mentally and physically. And part of that recovery for me, actually, was seeking out professional help, going to therapy.

And through therapy, that is actually where I was first introduced to hope and hope theory and kind of the processes of generating hope in your life.

And so, the therapist had me do hope theory exercises, many of which I now lay out in one of the chapters, I think it’s chapter 10 in my book. And I spent a lot of time doing that and it was really, you know, kind of, “What’s the next step? What’s the next step?”

And I think that’s also kind of the thing about hope is we tend to think that hope is this big thing that, “Oh, if I just have hope, it’s going to change everything.” Well, hope, it’s not really a fireworks-show moment. It happens in those quiet hours, in those quiet moments, by taking one step forward, and then the next step forward, and then the next step forward.

And that’s what I did, you know? It was kind of each of those little steps that built me back from burnout recovery. And then I learned how to really apply those types of strategies not only into my life, but into my leadership and into my work.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. Well, I would love it if you could really paint a picture for us, in terms of a scene that’s memorable for you, so we can sort of get a sense for, “Boy, what’s that hopeless Jen look, sound, feel like?” in terms of what you’re doing, what you’re saying to yourself, what you’re experiencing, as opposed to the hope has been restored Jen looking like?

Jen Fisher
So, one of the stories that I tell in the book was really when I was burnt out and kind of the conversation, I talk about it as the conversation that changed everything. And it was a regular check-in conversation with my boss, and I was going down my list, you know, checking things off, giving her all of the updates.

And she put down her pen and paper and looked me straight in the eye and, basically, said to me, “Jen, you’re not okay. And what’s worse is that you’re trying to convince everyone else and yourself that this is what okay looks like.”

And, of course, in that moment, my natural reaction was, “What are you talking about?” you know, the kind of defensiveness, right? And she looked at me and she said, “When was the last time you spent real time with your family without thinking about work?” And I couldn’t give her a good answer.

And then she asked me, “When was the last time you felt joy in your work?” And I couldn’t give her a good answer. And she went on to ask me a handful of additional questions, and I really couldn’t answer any of her questions in that moment or in a way that made me feel good about myself.

And what I will say is she wasn’t judging me. She wasn’t calling me out. She was coming from a place of concern to say, “You’re not okay, and you need to take some time for yourself to get okay.” And as hard as that moment was, perhaps that was the first moment of truth for me. That was the first time that I ever admitted to myself or anyone else that I wasn’t okay, that I was struggling, and that I did need help.

And so, I talk about that as the first moment of hope, because hope requires you to be truthful. It requires you to be honest and to recognize things as they really are. I think a lot of times, when people think about hope being whimsical or wishful thinking, they get that wrong because hope requires you to say like, “Hey, things suck. I’m not okay. I’m in a bad place. What’s going on is horrible.”

Like, recognizing truth and reality of where we really are and then building from there and starting to make that plan, set that goal of, like, “What’s the next step? And what’s the next step?” and create those pathways for yourself.

And so, I would say a hopeful Jen, I mean, there’s tons of stories in the book of just my journey of hope. And I don’t get it always right. I am a person that kind of tends to catastrophize things, and I live with a lot of anxiety.

And one of the things that I talk about in the book, which was really insightful, was a conversation with a friend of mine who knows that I have a lot of anxiety, that I live with anxiety. And she said to me, “This whole hope thing…” she’s like, “…doesn’t that make you more anxious to, like, have so many options, to have multiple pathways?”

And I thought that that was such an insightful question because, typically, people who have a lot of anxiety like concrete things. We like to know the way that it’s going to be so we can stop catastrophizing about all the things that could be. And as I thought about that, I was like, “You know, I think that hope and anxiety are kind of great partners for each other.”

Because what happens to me when I feel stuck or when I’m catastrophizing, I can step back and say kind of like, “What would hope tell me to do?” Well, hope would tell me to understand where I am now, understand how I want to get out of this place, and create those pathways for myself.

And so, instead of staying stuck and staying anxious in a really stuck place, I can identify multiple pathways in which I can get unstuck. And that actually helps my anxiety because it says, “Oh, wait, there’s not just one way and you’re not just stuck here forever. There’s all these other ways in which you can move forward.” So, hopefully, those are kind of helpful illustrations or stories to answer your question.

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, it’s great. Thank you. Yes, and, boy, what a blessing to have had that conversation, to have that leader, because I think the vast majority of professionals and humans would not be so direct in terms of, “Oh, you know, I don’t want to be invasive. It’s not really my place. I don’t want to be, you know?” And so, they, “Hey, Jen, you doing okay?” “Yeah.” “Okay. Just checking.” “Well, no, no, no, no, no.” Moving on as opposed to, “Hmm. Well…”

Jen Fisher
Yeah, because it’s uncomfortable.

Pete Mockaitis
Yeah, totally. So, I’m curious then in the before times, what do you think are some of the indicators she was picking up on that you were not as consciously aware of?

Jen Fisher
I think one of the things that you just pointed out, right, is that this idea of fine, right? Especially in the workplace when they have conversations with you, “How are you doing?” “Fine.” “How’s your workload?” “Fine.” “How are things at, you know, whatever, home?” “Fine.” So, we kind of build this fortress of fine, and that has become acceptable.

And so why is fine acceptable? When somebody says fine to me, and I probably learned this from her in many unspoken ways, but when I get too many fines right in a row from somebody, that is a signal to dig deeper and be like, “Okay, enough with the fine. Like, how are you, really?” And then it kind of shifts to like, “I’m good. I’m good.” “No, no. Like, I want more than one word. Can you give me six words on like how you’re doing?”

So, I think that that’s kind of what she was picking up on, but certainly, if I reflect back, my emotions were all over the place. I was either really, really high and really happy if things were going really well. If I had a bad conversation or a bad experience or a bad interaction with something, with somebody, my emotions were, like, in the toilet, all the way down.

And so, I was very high or I was very low. There was not really kind of in between, if you will. Certainly, my work product suffered, even though I was working longer hours than ever. The problem is that I was working longer hours than ever and that really affected my work product. I was very reactive. I was also very transactional and task-oriented.

I wasn’t interested in building relationships with my colleagues. I was interested in getting the work done and the metrics associated with those, with getting that work done. And that was uncharacteristic of me. And so, I think, she kind of saw a combination of things. But to your point, there’s not a lot of leaders like that, and so I credit so much of who I am today with her ability to really see me and have the compassion to reach out.

And, of course, at the time, you process that in a whole bunch of different ways. You process it as failure, but I look back on it now and it was one of the greatest gifts anyone has ever given to me. And so, I think I tried to emulate and be that leader and be that person for others now.

Pete Mockaitis
Beautiful, yes. Thank you. Well, let’s dig into some of this hope theory strategy tactic stuff. What do you recommend if folks are listening and they say, “Hmm, I’d like some more hope. That sounds nice”? What are some of the top first things to do?

Jen Fisher
I think the first thing that I recommend people do is do a hope audit, kind of understand where you are when it comes to your own hope. Are you struggling with hope? Are you doing great with hope? How’s your team doing? You can do it at an individual level, a team level, an organizational level.

But I think some of the most, kind of powerful, when I talk to people about hope, ways to assess your own hope, but also what I call hope-killers and hope-builders. And this is really in the language that we use in our lives, but especially in our workplaces and especially as managers of other human beings.

The lessons that I’ve learned is hope-killers are when we say things like, “We want you to bring your ideas. We value innovation. We want to do things differently.” And then somebody brings you an idea and you say something like, “No, that’s not how we do that here. That’s not how we do those things here. We don’t do that.” Or, “We tried that before and it didn’t work.” That’s an automatic.

Those types of things, where you’re shutting someone down, is an automatic hope-killer. What I will say about that is, because my goal is to never make anyone feel bad, that I learned these things the hard way and which is why I’m trying to teach others about it. We say these things as leaders and as managers because we believe that we’re being responsible.

We believe that if we tell somebody, “That’s not how we do it here,” or, “We’ve tried that before and it didn’t work,” that we’re being responsible. We’re being helpful. We’re basically telling them, “Don’t waste your time on that. Like, move on to the next thing, or just do it this way, because we know that it’s going to work and we know it’s acceptable.” You think those are time savers.

That’s kind of the path of least resistance, but it’s really a hope-killer for people because people want to come to work and be creative and come up with new solutions. And most organizations tell them that that’s what they value, but when they do it, then they shut it down.

And so instead, say things like, “Well, we’ve never done it that way. What intrigues you, what interests you, or what excites you about doing it that way?” I think about Ted Lasso, you know, “Be curious, not judgmental,” right?

So have your line of questioning when somebody brings you an idea. Instead of shutting it down, get curious about it, ask them questions. You might still say no, but at least you engaged in the conversation with somebody to understand where they’re coming from.

And that’s what helps us feel like we matter and that we are valued by somebody, not that we execute on every single idea that somebody has, but that we listen to them and that we see them. And that’s what actually creates and builds hope in the workplace.

And that kind of behavior, through the language and the way that we communicate with each other, is incredibly contagious when it comes to workplace culture.

Pete Mockaitis
The language, it is contagious in both directions.

Jen Fisher
In both directions, very negative and positive. Absolutely. Probably negative is more contagious, which is why it’s so dangerous, right?

Pete Mockaitis
Well, there’s a top tip right there, say, “Don’t use hope-killing language.” Do you have some superior alternatives for if someone is mentioning something and you really do have some insight that was tried before and it didn’t go well? I imagine you want to share that information and not withhold it, but you also don’t want to kill the enthusiasm. So, any pro tips for communicating that?

Jen Fisher
There’s nothing wrong with saying, “Hey, we tried something similar and it didn’t work out, but I want to hear from you. Like, what’s your approach? What do you think is different this time? What, in your mind, would make this work?”

And so, that opens up the dialogue for them to share with you what they’re thinking. And then you can have a conversation about it, right? Then you can share your own insight of, “When we did do this before and it didn’t work.” And then you might learn something from them. Maybe they aren’t proposing that you do it the exact same way that you did it before. Maybe it just looks like that on the surface.

And if you immediately shut it down and say, “Oh, we’ve done that before,” and move on, then you miss the opportunity to dig a little bit deeper. And I’m not talking about spending four hours, right? This is a 10-, 12-, 15-minute conversation with somebody that just is like, “Tell me a little bit more about why you think that that’s going to work,” or, “What excites you about this idea?” or, “Let’s dig a little bit deeper,” so that you can understand where they’re coming from.

And you can also share insight of like, “Hey, we did something similar. This is how we went about it. This is why it didn’t work, and this is why it didn’t work. What do you think? Why do you think that your approach is different?”

And so, it’s not about, like I said, it’s not about letting everybody come up with all kinds of ideas and just start running with all of them. But it’s more about, “How do you make somebody feel seen and valued in the workplace?” Because those are the top things, you know, feeling like you don’t matter in the workplace or in life, that is the biggest hope-killer of all, right?

Like, not mattering to somebody or not mattering to where you work, people start to disengage. And so, it’s really about seeing somebody and just having a quick conversation to understand where they’re coming from. It’s not always about, “Oh, we’re going to move forward with this idea even though I think it’s a bad one.”

Pete Mockaitis
Very good. Okay. Well, I’d also love to hear some of the other winning bits from this toolkit.

Jen Fisher
I think, something that I like to do, I call hope spotting, right? And so, there’s a lot of negativity in our world. There’s a lot of negativity in our workplaces.

And so, opening up team meetings or starting your own day as an individual, or ending your day as an individual, and actually spotting and calling out and acknowledging instances of hope-building, you know, talking about something that you thought wasn’t going to go well, but it actually went better than you thought.

Like, really identifying the times in your day or in your week where things went well, because we don’t do that. We tend to dwell on what went wrong, who pissed us off, what we didn’t do right, what we didn’t get done. And I’m not saying that you shouldn’t, you know, like there are lessons to be learned by mistakes that we’ve made or interactions that we’ve had that didn’t go as well as we wanted it to.

But we spend a lot more time on those things and we beat ourselves up. And so, really carving out a couple of minutes at the end of each day or in the morning, reflecting on the day before, or as you open a meeting, and allow people to spot hope, to say like, “Hey, this happened, and I thought it was great,” or, “I saw Bob showing the new person how to do X, Y, and Z, and that made me feel really good.”

We tend to kind of gloss over those things and we don’t call them out and we don’t acknowledge them. And so, I think that that’s a really important practice that can help people feel hopeful and have positive emotions in the workplace and feel like they’re valued.

Pete Mockaitis
Yeah, and I like that a lot in terms of, and that feels distinctly different than, say, a gratitude practice, counting your blessings, like, “Oh, I’ve got a great family. I’ve got a house, you know. I’ve got heat. I’ve got a cozy bed. I’ve got socks that feel great.” Sure. I mean, because we can do those things and those are good and special and shifting the spotlight onto them can be beneficial.

But when you really zero in on, “It went better than you thought it would,” it highlights that same zone of risk and uncertainty where so much of our lives are in these days. It highlights that. And it’s a powerful reminder that, “Yeah, it happens frequently that things work out better than you thought they would.”

So, thusly, perhaps as we’re assessing the probabilities or what’s likely to go down with the next thing, we may just be a bit more balanced in assessing the prognosis of stuff.

Jen Fisher
I love how you summarize that. I think that that was perfect. And that’s why I think hope is a practice, too, right? Because once you start to practice that, that becomes, I wouldn’t say your natural default. Maybe for some people. It’s still not my natural default, but it’s easier for me, right?

Like, I will catch myself going down the path of being like, “Oh, man, I can’t believe I said that,” or, “Oh, that was a really dumb answer.” And when I start to have that negative talk for myself, I’m like, “Wait a minute, what about all the things in the meeting, or the presentation, or the keynote, or the whatever, that went right?”

And so, I start to catch myself more quickly and I don’t follow the negative. And that’s not to say that we don’t screw up. We all screw up, right? Like, yeah, you’re going to say something stupid, you’re going to forget a line, you’re going to make a mistake, whatever it is that your role is, right?

It’s not to say, like those things don’t happen and those things don’t exist. But how do you balance the learning from making mistakes with also recognizing that there’s a lot right that you and others do in the world and calling that out?

Another thing that I really like to do, especially when I’m feeling stuck or, like, when my team is feeling stuck, is talk about possibilities, you know, and kind of do exercises around possibility thinking, right? And so, if I feel really stuck, if I have a problem and I can’t get out of it, or I’m just ruminating on it, asking myself the question of like, “Well, what’s possible here?”

Like, you know, this is kind of that pathways thinking of like, “Where could I go from here? I’m feeling stuck. I don’t want to stay stuck here. So, what are the possibilities here? Like, is this a dead end?” And if it is, kind of accepting that and moving on.

“But if I’m not truly stuck, what are the possibilities and what are the ways in which I can move forward?” And so, that’s kind of a question that I ask myself of like, “Okay, I’m feeling stuck. What are the possibilities here?” And that is a way to generate hope.

Another way, the best way perhaps to cultivate hope is with other people. Hope grows in community. Like many things, hope definitely grows in community, and surrounding yourself with people that support you, and also will hold you accountable when you need to be held accountable is one of the best ways that hope can grow.

And so, when I think about that inside of organizational life, obviously, the best place for that is on your team. But if there’s not people on your team, do you have a friend or two in the organization that you can connect regularly with, because connection is incredibly important for hope?

Pete Mockaitis
Beautiful. Thank you. Well, Jen, tell me anything else you want to make sure to mention before we hear about a few of your favorite things?

Jen Fisher
No, let’s do it. Like, I’ve talked a lot, but that’s the point, right?

Pete Mockaitis
Indeed, yeah. Can we hear about a favorite quote, something you find inspiring?

Jen Fisher
So, the cover of my book is a butterfly, and that’s a special symbolism to me, but it’s the perfect symbolism for hope. And so, one of my favorite quotes, “If nothing ever changed, there would be no butterflies.”

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. And a favorite book?

Jen Fisher
I would say Dr. Edith Egers’ book called The Choice.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. And is there a key nugget you share that seems to really connect and resonate with folks, they quote it back to you often?

Jen Fisher
I think one that’s coming up lately is a nugget of we would never put somebody in charge of operations or technology or finance that didn’t have operations, technology, or finance experience, but we continue to put people in charge of humans without any intelligence or knowledge or skill on wellbeing and hope.

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

Jen Fisher
The best place to connect with me is on LinkedIn, but my website is www.Jen-Fisher.com. I also have a Substack newsletter called “Thoughts on Being Well.”

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

Jen Fisher
Make hope your strategy or, at least, make hope part of your strategy.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. Jen, thank you.

Jen Fisher
Thank you.

Jan 26
0

1123: How to Move Past Setbacks through the Next Play Mindset with Alan Stein, Jr.

By | Podcasts | No Comments

Alan Stein, Jr. shares how elite performers bounce back and how you can do the same.

You’ll Learn

  1. How to take back control over your emotions and actions
  2. How to practice self-compassion without lowering your standards
  3. How to anticipate obstacles without becoming paranoid

About Alan 

Alan Stein, Jr. is an experienced keynote speaker and author. At his core, he’s a performance coach with a passion for helping business leaders change behaviors. He spent 15+ years working with the highest performing basketball players on the planet (including NBA superstars Kevin Durant, Steph Curry, and Kobe Bryant). Through his customized programs, he transfers his unique expertise to maximize both individual and organizational performance. 

Alan is a dynamic storyteller who delivers practical, actionable lessons that can be implemented immediately. He teaches proven principles on how to utilize the same approaches in business that elite athletes use to perform at a world-class level.

Resources Mentioned

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Alan Stein Jr. Interview Transcript

Pete Mockaitis
Alan, welcome back!

Alan Stein, Jr.
So great to be with you, my friend.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, I’m excited to be chatting. You’ve got some goodies for us in your book, Next Play. And I understand that this idea came from a book to you long, long ago. Tell us about that.

Alan Stein, Jr.
Yeah. In the year 2000, I remember it vividly, I had just graduated from college and I read Coach K’s first book, Coach K, the Hall of Fame, legendary, iconic former men’s basketball coach at Duke University. He was the one that actually coined the term “next play.” Although, I think even with his admission, this concept of focusing on the present moment is rooted in stoicism, which has been around for, obviously, thousands of years, but Coach K is the first that I had ever heard coined the actual term “next play.”

And Next Play, if I was going to summarize, it would be a framework for stop worrying about what just happened and learn to focus on what’s right in front of you. Stop worrying about what you wished happened and focus on the reality of what actually happened, and to stop worrying about what was and focus on what is.

And he really designed it as a way for his players to not worry about the missed shot or the turnover or the referee’s missed call, but to dial into the exact next play of the game and let go of the previous one. And what I find interesting is when I read that book in 2000, I, conceptually, understood the concept of next play. I mean, it’s pretty straightforward and logically it made sense to me.

But, truthfully, Pete, I didn’t have the emotional maturity at the time to actually integrate it into my life. At that time in my life, I still allowed myself to get emotionally hijacked by some of the most trivial annoyances and inconveniences that we all experience in life. I would find something to the akin of the Wi-Fi cutting out or a barista messing up my order. And that put me in kind of a downward spiral, in a bad mood, you know, for sometimes hours.

So, it wasn’t until maybe 10 years after reading the book that I was able to actually start adopting it and implementing it in my life and really saw the power of how focusing on the next play is such a game changer.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, that’s pretty juicy, Alan. So, I hear you that, yes, this is an idea that, Alan, makes good sense. Okay. Well, we’ll all nod our heads and say that sounds like a wise, proper prudent thing to do. And yet, actually executing it took some time for you to pull off. So, tell me, were there any groundbreaking insights, distinctions, nuances, breakthroughs that helped you actually put it into practice?

Alan Stein, Jr.
Well, what really put it into practice was, 10 years after reading it for the first time, I started working at a high school here in the Washington, DC area, which is where I live, DeMatha Catholic High School, which is a really renowned school for high school basketball, one of the top programs in the country. And their coach at the time was a gentleman named Mike Jones.

And Coach Jones actually put “next play” into practice with everything we did at DeMatha. I mean, he did it with the players. He did it with the coaches. He talked about it on the court. He talked about it off the court. He talked about it with the small things. He talked about it with the big things. I mean, it was really woven into the fabric of the DeMatha basketball culture that we always focus on the “next play.”

And he even had this hand gesture, almost as if he was flipping a page or flipping the script and say, “All right, we’re on to the next play. That play is over. We’re on to the next one.” And it was, I guess, through pure immersion of watching him implement it every single day with our program that I started to implement it in my life.

And it took a little bit of time. It’s one of these things that it’s really hard to just change the snap of a finger, but as I started to implement it in my life and as I witnessed the DeMatha program utilizing it, again, I could kind of see the power and the reframing tool. And then like anything else, just the pure repetition, the more I started to use it, the better I got at actually implementing it.

And here, you know, 26 years after reading about it for the first time, I’m slowly getting a pretty good grip on my ability to move to the next play. And with most of the things that I preach and teach, both on stage and on page, I’m not coming from a place of mastery. I won’t sit here and look at the camera and tell you that I always immediately move to the next play.

But what I will say is I do so more frequently and more often than I have at any other previous time in my life. And I’m able to do it in both the short term and the micro, and I’m able to zoom out and do it in the macro with the bigger transitions that we experience in life. And as I said, it’s just been so profound for me personally.

Pete Mockaitis
That’s intriguing. And this reminds me of a recent guest we had, Shirzad Chamine, who used to run CTI, the Coaching Training Institute, and he’s got a great program called Positive Intelligence. And he makes the point a few times, which seems striking, that he says to linger in a negative emotion for more than one second is sort of unnecessary, problematic, kind of undue suffering that limits our effectiveness, which is just striking, one second. Wow, that’s quick.

But that’s a kind of a similar notion, in terms of rather than a barista messes up your order, you go into an emotional spiral of yuckiness for hours to just say, “Okay, that happened and that was a bummer. Maybe, what can I learn from it? What’s my takeaway? What’s my action? What’s my response?” And, it’s sort of, you know, rock and roll, move on.

I’d say it does seem easier said than done at times. And I actually really liked what you had to say about the physical gesture of flipping a page because I’ve felt that in a couple of my emotional state worlds of gestures, like, “Oh, I’m grounding my feet firmly on the floor. I’m feeling my toes. Okay. All right. I’m sort of cleared up.”

Or, let’s say someone says, “Let’s take a step back,” I’ll actually physically move my whole shoulders and neck back, it’s like, “Yeah, you’re right. I was looking way close at this thing, and I’m going to take a bigger picture perspective,” and that gesture actually is sort of associated and attached with that. Or, I think of sometimes, like, literally shaking it off, like a dog shaking water all off of his body is beneficial.

So, I think some of this physical stuff, for me, is a handy tip to actually executing this. I’d love your thoughts on that and more tips and tactics for actually pulling it off.

Alan Stein, Jr.
The physical and the psychological are intertwined. It’s hard to compartmentalize and separate the two. Our thoughts drive our emotions and our emotions drive how we feel, and those feelings actually resonate and show up in our bodies. And I actually use the same one you just mentioned about feeling my toes and keeping my feet grounded on the floor, as well as the one that I just gestured, which is the next play.

So, I think having any type of physical anchor to connect to these mantras and frameworks is a very helpful reinforcement tool, in general. And you said something else there, really the heart of next play is how you process and how you choose to respond to everything that’s going on in the world around you. Really, next play is not only a tool to help you focus on the present moment.

It’s a tool to make sure that instead of reacting emotionally or reacting impulsively with some of our most primal feelings, instead, we decide to respond thoughtfully and respond purposefully. And that’s the whole point of next play, is that you don’t control the event or circumstance that just occurred, but you always control your response to it.

And I want to encourage others and invite them on the same journey I’m on, which is to do less impulsive reacting and do more thoughtful responding. And where this is most helpful is when things in our lives don’t go our way, when our preferences aren’t met, when things don’t happen the way that we wish they’d happen.

Well, how do you respond then? How do you behave then? Because I’m a big believer, not only will you improve your performance and productivity when you learn to bounce back quickly when things don’t go your way, but I know from firsthand experience, you’ll actually improve your enjoyment and fulfillment in life when you don’t let those negative thoughts linger and you quickly move on to the next play.

Pete Mockaitis
Certainly. Well, so can you give us some extra perspectives on how to do less impulsive reacting and more thoughtful responding?

Alan Stein, Jr.
The most important part, and this is the part that I struggled with the most, especially when I told you when I first read about the concept, this is the part that got me stuck, is you have to learn how to slow down. You have to learn how to take a breath, take a beat, take a pause, especially when something doesn’t happen the way that you want.

Because it’s in that space, between the stimulus and now your response, that you get to architect and determine how you are going to respond. When we don’t allow for that space or we don’t take any time, then our primal emotions just take over and we’ll react impulsively.

For me, personally, regardless of what the situation is, I’ve noticed that I still have the same thoughts and visceral feelings and physiological responses to when things don’t go my way. I just don’t allow them to drive the car. I don’t allow them to dictate my behavior.

So, a perfect example, I mean, if I’m sitting in traffic or somebody cuts me off, I still feel the primal urge to get angry, to want to honk my horn, or maybe give someone the finger. I’ve just learned to take a beat between actually doing that, and then thinking, “What would be a more appropriate response? What is a response that is more in alignment with the man that I’m trying to become? What is a response that I would want my kids to see me behave as and be more proud of?”

So, for me, it’s all about taking that split second to gather yourself, compose yourself, have some poise, and then be thoughtful about your next play. I want everyone to be less reactive and more responsive. And if you do so, it will help you in your relationship. It will help you in your output and performance and productivity at work.

And, like I said, it will help you just live a more enjoyable, fulfilling life because now you’re no longer allowing what the world does to dictate your mood and to dictate how you feel and dictate your behavior. We’re much more thoughtful in our responses.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, I like that a lot. And so, within that slow down, pause, gap moment, you inserted a question, and I think that was lovely in terms of like, “What would be a response that I would like for my children to do?”

And so, I think that’s huge in terms of reorienting where the pathway your brain is naturally going down, it’s like, “Oh, what an idiot. What’s his problem? Hey, does he not see? Does he not care that there was a danger in lives on the road? This jerk, whatever.” It’s like your brain can just go, one thought leads to the next, to the next, to the next.

But when you can ask that question, you’re really redirecting where that is headed in a powerful way. So, I’d love to hear any of your other favorite questions in that mix there.

Alan Stein, Jr.
Well, just so you know, those things that you just said there, and I know you were saying them a little bit in jest, but those are the exact same things I think when someone cuts me off. But as I said, the most important part about next play, and the most important part about our ability to regulate our emotions is separating how we feel and what we think from how we behave and how we respond.

So, I still think those things and that’s still my primal reaction. I just don’t allow that to overdrive and take over and dictate how I behave. So, that pause is where I can insert that question. And the funny part is, it may feel like you’re pausing for an eternity, but it’s usually only a second or two. It’s a couple of heartbeats. It’s really not that big a deal.

No one is saying that when someone cuts you off in traffic that you have to sit there and meditate for the next 20 minutes to think of a thoughtful response. All I want you to do is to feel your feet on the ground and have the awareness in the moment to say, “Hey, I can’t control that that person cut me off, but I can absolutely control how I respond to it. And I want to start choosing thoughtful responses.”

And I find that when we do that, we also start becoming kinder, more empathetic, compassionate people because, as you also just alluded to in your example, when you take a moment to pause then other questions come to mind, like, “What’s going on in this person’s life? Where are they going where they’re in such a hurry that they’re going to be a danger on the road?”

And then it’s a reminder to me that I don’t know anything going on in anyone else’s life at any given moment, especially a stranger in another vehicle. Maybe they have an emergency they’re trying to get to. Maybe they’ve got a sick child in the back of their car. You don’t know. And once again, reframing that allows more compassion and kindness and empathy to enter my heart, which means I’ll have softer, more appropriate responses.

But back to your original question of some other questions we can ask. I try not to label the questions or thoughts or feelings I have as good or bad, or as right or wrong, because it’s completely subjective and it’s completely contextual. What I try to do is I just ask myself, “Is this helpful? Is this a helpful question to ask?”

And my definition of helpful is whether or not it’s increasing my power or is it giving my power away? So, lots of times when things don’t go my way, my initial visceral reaction is to think, “Well, why is this happening to me? This isn’t fair. This sucks.” And once again, that means now I’m a victim of circumstance and environment.

Instead, since those questions are not very helpful questions, when things don’t go my way, I’ve trained myself to ask more helpful questions, like, “What can I learn from this? What can I gain from this? Even though things didn’t turn out the way I’d hoped, what is the next play that can actually help move me forward? How can I use this to actually learn something or make me better?”

Those are much more helpful, empowering questions and they put me back in the hypothetical driver’s seat because now I’m in control. Like I said at the very beginning, I don’t control events and circumstances. I always control my response, and that’s where our power comes from is in the response.

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, Alan, this is so good in terms of the, me, me, me focus. I mean, you mentioned sick child, and this brings me back to a story. This, literally, happened to me. I was in Chicago, I think it was after a date, just hanging out, chit chatting in the car. And then we see someone “parking” in what was totally not a parking space.

And so, it’s just kind of like in the middle of things, and we’re like, “What are you doing? That’s not a parking space. Can’t you see there’s no lights? What’s up with this guy?” So, we were like running our mouths about this, and then they very quickly hustled, while picking up a child from the back seat, and then went at a quick pace into the nearby building, which was a children’s clinic, and we were just that oblivious.

And so, I mean, you used that as an example, and it’s not just sort of like an extreme thought exercise, but like, “No, literally, that happened.” And we both felt so ashamed, like, “Oh, geez, we’re terrible people. They genuinely have a sick child at the children’s hospital, and we’re just mocking their parking job. Okay. Well, I hope they’re doing okay.”

Alan Stein, Jr.
Absolutely. Well, I sure appreciate you sharing that and that hopefully has stuck with you.

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, yeah!

Alan Stein, Jr.
I’ll give you two rather recent examples for me. Now, one, you’re privy to and your audience isn’t, and I certainly don’t say this to make anyone feel awkward, but as you know, my mom passed away two weeks ago, and my father was married to her for 52 years. I mean, that was his person. So obviously, he’s going through some hard times right now, trying to adjust to his next new play in life, which is, “How do I exist without the person that’s been my sidekick for 52 years?”

And the reason I say that is, for that first week in particular, I mean, my dad was an equal combination of devastated and overwhelmed. I mean, I can’t imagine what was actually going through his mind. And if he was navigating the world and maybe was driving and didn’t put his blinker on, he was driving a little bit slow, or was taking longer to order something when he got up to the front of a restaurant, I can understand why people behind him would be really impatient.

Like, “Hey, this old guy is in my way. Come on, Gramps, let’s go.” And yet, if they knew that a week prior to that, he had lost his person of 52 years, my guess is they’d be a little more patient. They’d have a little more tolerance and a little more understanding. And the reason I bring that up is we should all navigate the world as if those things are happening.

Another example, on a slightly more positive note, I have twin sons that are turning 16 in March, so they’re doing their driver’s ed right now, and I take them practice driving. And when I take them to practice driving, I mean, they’re brand-new drivers. They drive a little slow. They’re a little awkward with the blinker. Sometimes they can’t remember who has the right-of-way.

And we were at an intersection the other day and cars behind us were honking because my son should have taken the left but he was so nervous because there was another car coming. And same thing, I have a feeling, if the car behind us honking knew that there was an almost 16-year-old learning to drive for the first time, they’d be more patient, they’d be more tolerant, and they’d have a little bit more empathy.

And I use both of those as examples because I’m also the person that gets frustrated when there’s an old person in my way or a young person that doesn’t know how to drive. And it’s really helped me soften my responses because I just picture my dad or I picture my sons when I’m in something that is making me feel impatient, and just a reminder that most people are doing the best they can with the tools they have. And as human beings, we should be compassionate to that.

And I have to remind myself that, in that moment, I might be the one that’s being frustrated, but there’s other moments where I’m the one causing someone else’s frustration because we’re all fallible as human beings and sometimes we’re not at our best selves. So, the more patient and tolerant and accepting we can be, I just think we’ll live more fulfilling lives and we’ll create stronger and forge more connected relationships.

Pete Mockaitis
Yeah, I like that so much in terms of, like, living as though that were the case, which reminds me of, which we’ll link to the show notes, there’s a nine-minute YouTube video, which took audio from a David Foster Wallace commencement speech, “This Is Water,” discussing this very concept that we’re so wrapped up in our stuff that we don’t stop, pause, think about the other context there. And sometimes it really is true. And even if it’s not, living that way is handy.

But while we’re talking about generosity or kindness, your chapter three is entitled, “Tell Yourself How Great You Are.” Why is that useful, Alan?

Alan Stein, Jr.
Well, I think the most important conversations we ever have in our lives are the ones we have with ourselves. It’s the little voice in our head. And if anyone watching or listening right now is thinking, “I don’t have a little voice in my head,” well, who do you think just said that to you? Like, we all have the inner voice and the inner monologue.

And I really want to encourage folks, while we’re on this kick of compassion and tolerance and empathy, to learn how to start talking to ourselves in a more kind and compassionate way. I do a lot of work with really high performers.

And it’s been my first-hand experience, as well as the experience of working with these folks, that many times, high performers can be very critical of themselves, can be very judgmental of themselves.

And when they don’t perform to the level that they believe they’re capable of, they actually start to beat themselves up, figuratively speaking, of course. And I want folks to start learning to talk to themselves with the same compassion and kindness that you would talk to a loved one, or that you would talk to a child, or that you would really talk to anyone else.

You and I are friends, Pete. If you called me up after a really hard day, things didn’t go well, you had a couple of podcast interviews, and you had some tech issues, and one of the guests didn’t show up the way that you had hoped, and it was just kind of a tough day for you, as your friend, the last thing I would do in that moment is to be critical of you, is to make certain assumptions and be judgmental and beat you up and make you feel worse.

As your friend, I would want to create a safe space where I could just say, “Hey, man, I’m sorry that today didn’t go well. I know what that feels like. It doesn’t feel good, but just know, man, I believe in you and I know how good your show is, and how good of an interviewer you are. And maybe today didn’t quite live up to your standard, but I know you’ll be better next time because I believe in you.”

Like, that would be the general sentiment in which I would approach you as a friend. So why wouldn’t I talk to myself with that same type of kindness when I fall short? And just to be clear, I believe in holding myself and those I care about to really, really high standards.

None of this is about letting someone off the hook for low performance or for a casual attitude, but it’s about giving ourselves some grace whenever we fall short of expectation because we have to remember we are human beings, we are fallible, we are flawed, and nobody goes through life making all straight A’s. Like, occasionally, we’re going to mess up.

And when we mess up, how we talk to ourselves will dictate our next play. And that next play will dictate how we bounce back and what future performance will look like.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. Well, I’d also love your thoughts in chapter 28, you’ve got “Anticipate Obstacles.” And I’m thinking it’s an interesting game in terms of, thinking about what can go wrong can be helpful in terms of preparation, but it could also be not so helpful in terms of, “Ahh, let’s forget it, it’s too much. I don’t want to deal with all that, or it’s probably never going to work out.” So how do you think about running your brain with this tension?

Alan Stein, Jr.
I don’t ever want folks to be paranoid, but I always want them to be prepared. And there is a difference between the two, obviously. And where I first started thinking this concept was, when I was in the basketball training space and working with elite-level players, I found it kind of comical how many times a player would drive to the basket and get fouled, and that they would get so upset and been out of shape over the defense fouling them.

And I would remind them, like, “Hey, that’s the defense’s job. You do realize the guys in the other color jerseys are trying to keep you from scoring. And when they do that, occasionally, they’re going to hit your arm or foul you. So instead of being surprised that a defender fouls you, why don’t you just assume they’re going to foul you when you go to the basket?”

“Kind of like, you know, hopefully you never have to hear a pilot say this, but if they would say, ‘Brace for impact,’ it’s the same thing like brace for contact when you’re driving to the basket and expect that somebody’s going to hit you. And if they don’t be very pleasantly surprised that you can get to the basket uninterrupted, but don’t be surprised by the contact.”

And for me, I use it in my life in several different ways. As a professional keynote speaker, I have contingency plans for a whole handful of things that potentially could happen during my talk. It could be something like someone in the front row keeps yelling things out, or one of the waiters drops a glass and it shatters in the middle of my talk, the AV goes out and I can’t use the PowerPoint anymore, the microphone doesn’t work.

Like, things that I’m not saying there’s a high likelihood they’ll happen, but there’s a decent chance they’ll happen, and I don’t want to be caught off guard when those things do occur. So, I try to proactively have contingency plans for if they happen, here’s how I’ll handle it.

And of course, if something tangential happens, so maybe they don’t drop a glass but something else is disturbing, maybe somebody’s phone goes off, then I feel more at ease because I’ve prepared for these different scenarios and I’ve imagined them in my mind before they’ve occurred, so when they actually happen in real life, it’s a more seamless transition to move to that next play.

Now I’m not on stage going, “Oh, gosh, I sure hope no one’s phone rings,” “Oh, man, I sure hope no one drops a glass,” I’m not even registering that, I’m not even thinking about it, but if that happens, I will be ready.

And that’s all that I encourage folks to do is to be proactive and giving some thought to some obstacles that may come your way, personally or professionally, and then just have an idea of what your next play will be if they do occur.

Pete Mockaitis
Yeah, that’s a good feeling, just that confidence that comes from that level of preparation. One of my favorite stunts to pull when I was doing more keynote speeches was, if you’d hear a little bit of an extra hiss in terms of the microphone situation, I just loved saying to the client and the AV tech people, it’s like, “I think there’s a mismatch between the impedance of the source and the line here. I have a microphone impedance matching transformer with me in my bag, which will probably fix that hiss.” They’re like, “Oh, my gosh, we’re dealing with a pro.”

Alan Stein, Jr.
Absolutely. Love that. We can never be too proactive in thinking about those things. And the other way that we use this, the proactivity portion is, most people apply the next play in the moment. As I said, it’s the basketball player who turns the ball over and misses the shot, next play. It’s when the Wi-Fi cuts out, or the barista messes up your order, or somebody cuts you off in traffic, next play.

But where I also want folks to use it is when you zoom back out and you think of the big transitions in life that most of us will go through, and you start proactively thinking, “How am I going to handle this next play when circumstances change?” I’ll use the same two examples from before.

So, my mother passed recently, my dad is not in the best of health, and I say that with a heavy heart. I don’t know how much more time I have with him, hopefully, plenty of more years, but we know that that’s not guaranteed.

But, at some point in the near future, I’m going to go through a transition of having spent the majority of my life with two very engaged, active, loving parents, to then stepping into living my life in a next play when both of my parents are deceased. And who am I going to be and what am I going to do when I step into that new version?

On the same other side, I mentioned I’ve got twin boys that are almost 16. I also have a daughter that’s almost 14. In the blink of an eye, my three kids will graduate from high school and move on to whatever they choose to do post high school. And I’ll be affectionately known as an empty nester. Well, what is my next play going to be when I no longer identify with having children at home? Like, who am I going to be and what am I going to be in that next play?

And there are so many next plays that many of us go through, whether it’s marriage or divorce, or when you’re running your business. Well, what if you get sued? What if you go bankrupt? What if you have to make layoffs? Conversely, what if your business starts growing at an exponential rate and you have to hire a whole bunch of more people right away? How do you maintain your culture when you’re trying to scale very quickly?

Like, all of these could be potential next plays, and I don’t want them to monopolize or paralyze us as we think about them, but I do want us to give some thought to proactively deciding, “How am I going to deal with these circumstances changing if and when they do because there’s a very good likelihood they will?” And that’s where the proactivity and the preparedness comes into play.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, thank you. And whenever we’re chatting, I’d love to hear some tales of you and super pro famous athletes, Kobe Bryant, Kevin Durant, etc. Any memorable stories, moments, experiences from some of the greats that help illustrate some of this stuff?

Alan Stein, Jr.
Sure. Well, I mean, the most memorable one, it’s usually the opening story I give in my keynotes, was meeting Kobe Bryant for the first time in 2007.

And for context, for any of your viewers or listeners that don’t follow basketball as closely as I do, most would agree that in 2007, Kobe was the best player on the planet. And I remember as a young coach at that time watching one of his early morning private workouts and being really surprised at how basic the drills were. He was drilling down on fundamentals that I had done with middle school age players.

Now he was doing them with an unparalleled level of focus and detail and precision and effort, but the actual drills he was doing were very basic. And when I asked him later that day at camp, why a player at his level, the best player in the world would focus on doing such basic drills, he said something that, fundamentally, changed my life forever. He said, “Why do you think I’m the best player in the world? Because I never get bored with the basics.”

That teaching moment, I mean, literally, the hairs on my neck still stand up when I tell that story and it’s been almost 20 years, that the best of the best never get bored with the basics. They have a strong respect and appreciation for the fundamentals, and they try to simplify success, like the sign above my head, that they try to untether from the unnecessarily complex and they just drill down on mastery of the basics.

And that’s really been the foundation to everything I believe and everything I preach and teach on page and on stage is working towards mastery of the basics, and Next Play is a pillar, is an offshoot of that, is a component of, “What is a basic framework we can use to be more thoughtful in our responses and stay dialed into the present moment?” And that’s what it is for me. It’s this whole concept of next play.

And, you know, next play, I mean, I’ve seen, certainly, athletes use it with tremendous results, but I’m now seeing folks in the business world be able to use it as well with equally great success. And I can tell you now, any organization that can develop a next play mentality with their team is going to be at a massive advantage over their competition.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. Well, Alan, tell me, anything else you want to make sure to mention before we hear about some of your favorite things?

Alan Stein, Jr.
No, man, this has been fun. I always love connecting with you. You always spur such great thoughts and ask such great questions, man.

Pete Mockaitis
Thank you. Well, now can we hear about a favorite quote, something you find inspiring?

Alan Stein, Jr.
Funny enough, I was actually watching, like, a reality show on Netflix about real estate. It was called “Owning Manhattan” with Ryan Serhant. And one of the members of his team said, “If you’re not changing it, you’re choosing it.” So that’s a relatively new quote and it just hit me really hard when I heard it.

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

Alan Stein, Jr.
Well, one that I found while doing this book that I thought was really interesting was that the average visceral emotion that we feel only lasts about 90 seconds. If you just let it run through you, and if you just accept it, you’re only going to be frustrated, irritated, angry, upset for about 90 seconds, if you just take that breath and just say, “Hey, I’m feeling frustrated right now.”

The problem most people have is they keep throwing logs on the fire and coal on the fire, and they keep starting that stopwatch over because of the self-narrative and the additional internal dialogue they have when that happens.

So, the barista messes up your order and you feel frustrated, and then you start saying things to yourself like, “Man, this is ridiculous. This guy never pays attention. He’s always messing up my order.” Well, the clock just started over again. “Man, this isn’t fair. I can’t believe this is happening to me. I’m late for a meeting, and now I got to wait for another coffee to be made,” clock starts over again.

And that’s why some people can experience someone cutting them off in traffic in the morning, or the Starbucks barista messing up your order, and they stay in that spiral for hours because they keep starting the clock over through the unhelpful self-narrative.

So, to me, it’s so important just to say, “Hey, I’m a little frustrated that they messed up my order at Starbucks. I’m allowed to be frustrated. That’s okay. But I’m not going to allow it to dictate how I behave or how I show up. And I’m certainly not going to be rude to the barista. These things happen.” And by the time I finished that sentence, it’s been about 90 seconds and I just move on with my day.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. Thank you. And could you share a favorite book?

Alan Stein, Jr.
One of the go-to resources, well, I’ll give two. One is the book I mentioned at the very beginning of this called Leading with the Heart, which is Coach K’s first book, where I heard about next play for the first time.

Another book that I recommend very highly is by my good friend, Phil Jones, a fellow speaker. And he wrote a book called Exactly What to Say. And it’s a shorter book, it’s almost more of a handbook and a guide than it is an actual book, but, really, Phil’s whole tagline is, “When you change your words, you change your world.”

And he talks about the power of language and then how certain phrases and statements and questions we can ask, can actually help us get a better response from the people we’re trying to connect with. So, anyone that’s in a leadership position or in a sales position, highly recommend Leading with the Heart by Coach K, and Exactly What to Say by Phil Jones.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. And a favorite habit?

Alan Stein, Jr.
I’m a real stickler for my morning routines. My morning routine, how I spend the first 60 minutes after I wake up, really primes me for the rest of the day and has a massive influence on what type of day I’m going to have, so I’m very protective of the first 60 minutes of my day.

And within the first 60 minutes, I do the very best I can to not check email and not check social media. I do check text messages just in case there was an emergency or a fire that needs to be put out. But I try not to check my inbox or check social media.

I try to do something that engages my physical body, whether it’s some light stretching or playing pickup basketball or lifting weights or going for a walk. And then, at the same time, I try to do something that gets me mentally or emotionally engaged as well. So read, watch, or listen to something that’s either educational or inspiring.

And if I can check those three boxes within the first 30 to 40 minutes of waking up, it usually sets a pretty nice foundation for how the rest of the day will go.

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

Alan Stein, Jr.
They can just go to my website, which is just AlanSteinJr.com. That’s kind of the central hub for everything that we have going on. And you can also find me on social media at @alansteinjr. on Instagram and LinkedIn and all of the major platforms. I take a tremendous amount of pride in being both accessible and responsive.

So, if someone enjoyed this conversation that we’ve had, and I hope that they have, and they want to share something or ask something, just shoot me a DM on Instagram or LinkedIn. I’m very good about getting back.

And if you have any interest in bringing me in to speak to your team or school or organization. You can find all the information on my programs at AlanSteinJr.com. And then, of course, you can grab “Next Play” on Amazon or Audible or wherever you get your books and audio books.

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

Alan Stein, Jr.
See if you can adopt this next play mentality. See if you can, at the very start, just put an insert, that pause or that breath or that beat, after you feel the visceral emotion to react, and just take a second so that you can be thoughtful in your response.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. Alan, thank you.

Alan Stein, Jr.
My pleasure. This was a lot of fun. Thank you, Pete.

Jan 22
0

1122: How to Find the Work You’re Wired to Do with William Vanderbloemen

By | Podcasts | No Comments

William Vanderbloemen discusses how professionals can find both success and satisfaction in their careers.

You’ll Learn

  1. The one habit that puts you ahead of 90% of people
  2. How to learn what you don’t know about yourself
  3. The one skill to work on—regardless of your job

About William 

William Vanderbloemen has been leading the Vanderbloemen Search Group for 15 years, where they are regularly retained to identify the best talent for teams, manage succession planning, and consult on all issues regarding teams. This year, Vanderbloemen will complete their 3,000th executive search.  

Prior to founding Vanderbloemen Search Group, William studied executive search under a mentor with 25+ years of executive search at the highest level. His learning taught him the very best corporate practices, including the search strategies used by the internationally known firm Russell Reynolds. Prior to that, William served as a Senior Pastor at one of the largest Presbyterian Churches in the United States.

Resources Mentioned

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William Vanderbloemen Interview Transcript

Pete Mockaitis
William, welcome!

William Vanderbloemen
Thanks so much, Pete. Appreciate you having me here.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, I’m excited to talk about some of your wisdom. Your book, “Work How You Are Wired,” great title, great messages. I want to kick it off right at the beginning, I’m intrigued, we’ve got right off the bat, chapter one titled, “Almost Everyone Hates Their Job.” What a bummer! Can you tell us, what’s the underlying research data for this assertion?

William Vanderbloemen
If you do a pretty thorough search, and we did, of reputable surveys, of really honest looks at happiness and engagement in the workplace, the resounding conclusion is most Americans hate their job.

And it’s probably also true globally, but most Americans hate their job. Not we’re mildly dissatisfied or we’re a little bit unengaged or when is hump day or that sort of thing. They really don’t like their jobs. And life is just too short to spend the majority of your waking hours doing something you hate.

And to add onto that, most Americans hate their job, most managers say their team is just okay. Now that’s a really messed up world, where you’ve got people that hate doing what they do and managers thinking on your best day you’re okay. Is it possible to find work that you enjoy and are good at?

That’s like the alchemy we were trying to study from an empirical, data-driven method to figure out, “Who is happy at their work and good at it? And how do we distill that into a pathway for readers to be able to find work they’re happy with?”

We wrote a book on how to behave at work and get promoted. It did wildly well. It’s called, Be The Unicorn. It’s like, “Wow, if I just do all this, I’ll get promoted,” and it works. However, if you’re getting promoted within a workplace that you don’t enjoy, that’s really not the whole ball game, you know, “What does it profit a man if they gain the whole world, but lose their soul?”

Pete Mockaitis
Yes. Okay. Well, so now I’m intrigued by the almost part. So I know that we’ve heard about the Gallup Engagement Study many a time on the podcast. It’s a favorite research piece to cite. So with that and other sources, are we looking, William, at 2%, 6%? How many people are digging their job and flourishing in it?

William Vanderbloemen
Yeah, not many. Not many that I can find. If you look at who’s disengaged, you’re going to find a widespread of this percent, that percent, but the majority is more than half. Some will go as high as three-fourths. So I guess you could deduce that less than half of people are really enjoying their job. And then you get to, “And are they any good at it?” It’s pretty small.

I run an executive search firm, which means companies hire us to find their best talent. And we’ve been doing it a long time. We would do a pretty high volume of that, so we have lots of data at our fingertips. And we went and found the people that are the absolute best at their job and happy with it, that we know, and I mean, like 30,000 of them.

And we tried to draw some common denominators about, “What work did they choose based on what kind of personality they have? And is there a way to distill that so that somebody reading could pick up a book like that, and say, ‘I need to find work that’s going to be fulfilling and make me feel good and that I’ll be good at’?” Because it doesn’t have to be that way.

And, thank goodness, we’re no longer in a day where you get one job out of high school, you stay with the company 55 years, you get some form of watch at the end, and, “Yay! Yay!” No, there’s a lot of career mobility. If you’re not happy, it doesn’t have to stay that way.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. Understood. Well, could you give us perhaps the overview mindset shift or perspective that we should take on as we’re exploring these kinds of questions?

William Vanderbloemen
Yeah, you need to get to know yourself. That’s it. Get to know yourself. Get to know what you’re good at and what you’re not. Get to know what you like, what you don’t. Get to know what gives you energy, what doesn’t. Know yourself. And that sounds so simple, but to go way back in the wayback machine, I don’t use my philosophy degree for a lot, but Socrates, maybe the founder of Western thought, his top teaching was, “Know thyself.”

And when we studied the 30,000, we called them unicorns because they just stand out in the crowd. They’re this kind of people. Pete, you ever get in an elevator and ride for 30 seconds with somebody on the elevator, and by the end of elevator ride, you’re like, “I want to know more about them. I want to sign up for their email list. I want to be a part of their…”?

Or, you run into them at a cocktail party, there’s something different about their countenance, right, and you want to engage. Those are what we call unicorns, and it bleeds over into work. They behave a certain way. They choose a certain type of work based on their knowledge of themselves. And what we found, when we studied these unicorns, is they have about 12 habits they follow that are not hard to follow, but very few people follow them. And one of them is the practice of self-awareness.

Now, this is a little long, so stay with me just for a minute. But we surveyed the 30,000 unicorns we had, and we said, “Force-rank these 12 habits, what are you really good at and what are you not?” And the “What are you really good at?” was different all across the board because some people like speed, some people like studying methodically, people are wired differently.

But the one common denominator, when they’re force-ranked what they’re good at, the unicorns, the best of the best said that their worst habit of the 12 is self-awareness. Like, across the board, they’re all like, “I got to work on that.” Now, hold that thought.

We also surveyed a quarter million people, just Gen pop, you and me, everybody out there. And when it came to self-awareness, the average people, like me, 93% of us said we were above average in self-awareness.

Pete Mockaitis
Ninety-three percent?

William Vanderbloemen
Now I’m not a math major, but there’s not a group on the planet where 93% is above average. Average is 50% and half’s above and half’s below.

Pete Mockaitis
It’s like Lake Wobegon going on over here.

William Vanderbloemen
Right, people think they’re exactly, exactly. That’s exactly what it is. And the best way I can describe it is, do you remember the first time you heard your voice recorded?

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, yeah.

William Vanderbloemen
Oh, it was terrible for me. I don’t know, how was it for you?

Pete Mockaitis
Yeah, well, it was not pleasant. It was a voicemail situation, and that’s a whole other thing.

William Vanderbloemen
Oh, and you heard, and you’re like, “That’s not me.”

Pete Mockaitis
It was disappointing, like, “Oh, really?”

William Vanderbloemen
Yeah, I mean, I was like, “Who’s this guy talking, and why is his voice so bad?” And it was me. It’s that disconnect. People are not willing to take objective, hard looks in the mirror and see what they’re good at. If you really want to find work that you’re wired to do, you need to spend some time getting to know yourself on a, “How am I wired?” basis.

And the good news is we’re living in an age where you can find that stuff out quicker than ever, whether you use an Enneagram, or a DISC inventory, or Myers-Briggs, or what have you. You can figure out how you’re wired easier than any generation in human history. And if you’ll start there, get to know yourself, “What do you enjoy? What are you good at? What drains energy from you?” if you start to get to know yourself, you’ll be able to find work that you’re wired to do.

In the book, we took the 12 habits that unicorns practice, which is in the Be the Unicorn book, and we said, “This sounds like 12 lanes of work.” And, sure enough, it is. So, like, one of the habits is speed, “Do you get back to people quickly? Do you do it intentionally? Are you driven to go faster and faster?”

There are types of work that are really good at that – sales, marketing, executive assistant. That is speed driven. Neurosurgery is not, right? So you can have good, talented, smart people with different wirings that don’t need to be in certain kinds of jobs.

I sat with a friend of mine who actually is a neurosurgeon, and we met years and years ago. It was the first time I’d met with him. We went to a nice restaurant he picked for lunch. And let’s just call him Pete to save the identity, okay?

So, Pete sits down next to me, and the table gets set. I looked at my watch, he spent three solid minutes, arranging his forks and knives and silver just perfectly. And I just kept watching and watching. And, finally, he looked up and saw me watching him, and he kind of smiled, and I said, “Pete, have you ever considered studying OCD?”

And he kind of laughed and he looked at me, and he said, “William, here’s the thing. You want your neurosurgeon to be OCD.” And I was like, “You’re right.” So he understands himself. He’s in a field of work that requires that. He’s in one of those 12 lanes.

And the book is basically a 101 guide to saying, “How do I figure out myself enough to know which of these 12 lanes I’m most naturally wired for? And what are the jobs that really show up in those 12 lanes?”

Pete Mockaitis
Well, William, to rewind a smidge, that notion of self-awareness, it’s fascinating. We had Dr. Tasha Eurich on the show, and that’s one of her big pieces, is you’re not as self-aware as you think. And that is the case for, I guess, 93% of those folks there.

And it’s intriguing that the unicorns think their self-awareness is worst. The rest think their self-awareness is great. And so, it kind of speaks to that notion of the true master recognizes that there is much more to learn in a given domain. And it is the sort of amateur or intermediate who thinks, “Oh, yeah, I got all that figured out.”

So, I’m intrigued about that very notion, is that sort of, I’m sure there’s a riddle or a quotable gem about this notion that, “If you think you’ve got it all figured out, you sure don’t. And it pays to have some humility and dig deeper into gaining a greater mastery of that thing.”

William Vanderbloemen
And if you’ll just commit just a little bit of time to it, learning a little bit about yourself, you’ll be ahead of 90% of everybody. It doesn’t take a lot of work.  That’s the good news about these statistics. Just learn a little. It’s like I’m a level two sommelier. And level one, I thought I knew something. Level two, it’s like, I don’t know anything.

But by just getting to level two, where I don’t know anything, if I’m at a dinner party, I know way more than most everybody around the table. It’s the same with self-awareness. We’re so bad at it. If you’ll just get a little bit better, you’ll have a competitive advantage in all of your human relationships and definitely in finding work that you’re wired to do.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, so let’s talk about the self-awareness notion in terms of what does good self-awareness look like such that we might have a wake up call, and be like, “Oh, wow, William, I guess I’m not self-aware at all now that you mentioned it”?

William Vanderbloemen
Well, how about we do a little, here’s a fun little exercise. Nearly everyone, I think, listening has probably interviewed for a job where one of the questions is probably the one out of the gate is, “So tell me about yourself.”

It’s a pretty paralyzing question, “Okay, I came home from the hospital. I was born on a Saturday. I came home from the hospital on a Tuesday, I didn’t walk till I was…” I mean, does it need to be that thorough?

Pete Mockaitis
Yeah, there’s a thousand directions you can take with that one. Yeah.

William Vanderbloemen
It’s so liberating, it’s paralyzing. How’s that? It’s not specific, right? So what if you did this instead? What if you said, “Tell me about yourself,” and I’m interviewing to work for you, Pete, and you’re running some really fast-growing podcast? I mean, Joe Rogan is nervous about you, right? So, like, you’re moving big time up the chart.

Pete Mockaitis
But more because of my ultimate fighting skills, William.

William Vanderbloemen
That’s right. Well said. So, you are interviewing me for a marketing position, and you said, “Tell me about yourself.” Well, this is very careful sentence, “Here’s what I’m learning about myself,” that’s interesting. Just steal that line, use it if you’re listening, “Here’s what I’m learning about myself.”

And that shows I don’t have it all figured out and I’m very aware of it. I am working on it. That’s great. Now what you can’t do is say, “Let me tell you what I’m learning about myself,” and then go into what you’re talking about with your therapist about childhood trauma, and, like, not that, right? That’s certainly something worth learning.

But in a job interview, what if you said, “Here’s what I’m learning about myself, Pete. I’m learning that, you know, on the Myers-Briggs, I’m a very high I. I like to plan the next party. And, you know, if you look at me on the Enneagram, I’m a seven. That’s like the social coordinator, the rush chairman. And what’s really interesting about people that are I’s and 7’s is they love trying new things. Okay, so that’s me.”

“If you look at my last three jobs, and where I’ve listed on my resume, the things I actually accomplished,” which, by the way, is a freebie thrown in there. Don’t talk about objectives in your resume. Talk about things you got done. “If you look at where I got the highest marks in my last three jobs, every single job, it was when the boss asked me to, ‘Go figure something out we’d never done before.’ That gives me energy, right?”

“What doesn’t give me energy is showing up at work and being told, ‘Do the same thing every day and make it a little bit better every day, same routine task and engineer it better.’ Like, I can do it, but I’m going to lose energy. You’re not going to give me a good review. Put me in a place where I’ve never seen it before and I have to. And I know that about me. I’m learning it. I’m a seven. I’m an I. I’m learning these things.”

“Let me tell you why I’m saying all this. I’ve looked at your company, Pete, you’re growing like crazy. It’s not just Joe Rogan. Mel Robbins is talking, too. They’re worried. And I’m guessing you, with all this world of algorithms and AI and marketing changing, you don’t need somebody who has a fixed playbook that’s going to come in and try and run it their way. You need someone who really enjoys the curiosity of trying to figure something out.”

“Someone who says, if you said, ‘Jump out of the plane and build a parachute on the way down,’ I would get excited about that. And I’m guessing that’s what your company’s facing. So what am I learning about myself? There’s a lot more to learn. But the way I’m wired might match the kind of challenges you’re facing with this job. And I’m super excited to dive into that with you today.” That’s a whole different way to answer.

And, by the way, you’ve just won the interview and you’ve prevented them from asking you the question, “Well, what is your greatest weakness?” I hate that question. So, does that help?

Pete Mockaitis
Certainly. So, it’s ongoing. We’re learning about ourselves and, in so doing, there’s great stories to be told and matches to be found and options to be ruled out based upon what you’re seeing there. That’s super. So you mentioned the DISC, the Myers-Briggs, the Enneagram, and those are cool. Do you have any other go-to approaches, methodologies, questions that are super impactful in terms of getting meaningful self-awareness upgrades?

William Vanderbloemen
Well, the main thing is do you have friends that will actually tell you the truth? I mean, that’s the ultimate test. And one of the ways you can look for that is, “Do your friends always tell you things you like or not?” My wife, I love her, there’s no one I’d rather spend time with on the planet than her. And I’m not saying that to be like saccharine or anything. It’s true.

And she tells me things I don’t want to hear every day. And it’s usually to pull something out of me, some self-awareness I need to develop. So, do you have friends who actually tell you things you don’t want to hear that you reflect back and say, “You know, they’re right about that”?

And then the second way is to use some of these inventories – DISC, Myers-Briggs, Enneagram. We developed one around these 12 lanes called the Vander Index, which will very quickly tell you, “Here’s my top lane of these 12, and where I probably ought to look first. And here’s my bottom one where I’m probably not going to be happy. And then some things in the middle that maybe are worth a look and maybe not.”

Pete Mockaitis
And I am digging the notion of you need friends to tell you the truth. You’re bringing me back to, in college, I was selected to be the student speaker at the College of Business Commencement ceremony at the University of Illinois, and that was kind of fun and cool and yay. But I played this joke on people, and they said, “Oh, you’re going to be the speaker. What are you going to talk about?”

And so I would do the shtick, and I’d say, “Okay, I got a crazy idea. All right, check it out. So people think graduation rite, it’s like the end? But, no, no, I’m going to flip it on its head and say, ‘No, check it out.’ Actually, it’s the beginning. And that’s why they call it commencement, right?” So that’s like super cheesy, been done way too many times speech.

And so, I like to mess with people by getting super fired up about it, right, just to see what they would do. And you could tell good friends, they’re like, “You’re joking, right?” That’s what a good friend says. And then the not-so-great friends are like, “Oh, interesting.” You know, they just sort of smile, nod, and move along.

So, I love that, is to have the friends and then to, you don’t have to subject them to joke tests. But I think it does pay to, and again, Dr. Tasha Eurich had a technique she called the Dinner of Truth, where you’re actually asking these good friends the key questions because they might not know that that feedback is welcome, needed, desired from you to go there.

William Vanderbloemen
And here’s a little secret, Pete. Maybe you’ve experienced it as well. I’ve had the chance to be around a lot of successful people, way more successful than I am. I’ve also been blessed to see this company grow more than I ever thought it would.

I think most uber successful people will tell you, “The more successful you get in life, the fewer people there are that will tell you the truth.” I have a friend who says, “The first day you’re the CEO is the last day you hear the truth because everybody wants to tell you how wonderful things are.”

My COO, and I hired her, said, “What’s the main reason you’re hiring me?” And I said, “To tell me the truth. Like, that’s all.” And she’s like, “That’s it?” I’m like, “That’s it.” So, as you, I imagine people were taking time to listen to your podcast are progressing in their career, they’re moving up.

Probably a lot of listeners, mid-30s or under, just realize, establish those friendships now before you hit the top of whatever ladder you’re climbing because once you get to the top, it’ll be very hard to find friends that’ll be honest with you.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. So, good friends, ask questions, take the Vander Index. Can you give us the rundown? What are these 12 lanes?

William Vanderbloemen
Yeah, sure. They are, we can start with the fast, because it’s my favorite. But, you know, the fast is people who respond and respond quickly and love doing it. Like, I probably ought to be in therapy. If you text me, it really doesn’t matter what time of day it is, I’m probably looking at it.

And I know that’s on the way out and the Brick is the thing everybody’s putting their phone on, all my kids want it, to disconnect from the addicted phone and all. But there is still an art. Business is won by speed of response. And there’s all kinds of research in the book to talk about it. But that’s one.

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, yeah, Jay Baer, on the show, talked about this. It could be huge, in sales particularly.

William Vanderbloemen
And it’s not hard. The reality is it’s just not hard, but very few people follow through on it. Very few, but that’s one. If you’re one that’s like, “I just need to get back to them real quick,” if you find yourself constantly answering a text, that might be a sign that you’re one of the fasts.

And rather than run through all of them, I’ll give you just a couple others. The prepared is another one. And it’s almost the opposite of the fast. The prepared is someone who comes to work with everything neat. Like, my wife’s pantry is this way. She is prepared. Everything is in the same place. And if we rent a house for vacation, the pantry gets set up pretty much the same way.

So there are some people like that and those are people that you want in compliance roles, train masters, brain surgeons, pilots. These are people that speed isn’t as important as quality control.

Another habit that I’ll just hit on real briefly is some people have a lane where their work needs to matter more than just what they get to do. Like, I love selling stuff. I always have. I am a salesperson at heart. However, if I were selling something that didn’t leave the world better than I found it, I’m not going to be as energized. We call it purpose driven. Are you driven by something higher than just getting the check?

And some people aren’t, or some people are, but just by little things. Some people are about giant things. If you are purpose driven and you go into a business with zero purpose, you’re going to be very, very unhappy. Authenticity is another one. Do you have to be authentic? Is that who you are?

And not to use too many personal stories, but we had one of our seven kids that didn’t pass the Driver’s Ed test when it was time to go get the license. Like, they just messed up one turn. Perfect on everything but that one thing.

And they’re like, “Oh, my gosh, I don’t know what I’m going to tell my friends.” “Well, just tell them you’re taking the test tomorrow.” But that’s a lie, “Well, are you taking the test tomorrow?” “Yes, but it’s not telling them I failed today.” Like, this particular child is very authentic, “I’m not going to hide the truth.” You know what she would be terrible at? Politics.

Pete Mockaitis
Politics.

William Vanderbloemen
She’d be horrible at it. Because there is, you say, “Well, politicians are disingenuous.” Actually, to run for president of the United States, you have to know how to talk to people in Yakima, Washington, which is way different than Seattle, Washington, and in Illinois, which is way different than in Texas. And so you have to mold and adapt and shift.

And people who are very driven by authenticity will not do well in that role, nor will they do well in a sales role. There are other jobs for them. And the cool thing about the book is we actually unearthed jobs that you would think all the jobs that are listed are CEO, CFO, COO. No, no, no, no, no.

Mailman is in here. Like, things, brick mason, which is a great career to go into right now for a whole lot of reasons, not the least of which is AI. But there are clear examples within each lane. You should read the chapter about a lane and say, “That’s me.” You don’t have to go take a test. “That is actually who I am. Okay, here’s the kind of work I need to look for. Here’s the kind of work that’s going to make me crazy.”

So, hopefully, within each, and you can read them in any order, but by the end of the book, you should find one, two, or maybe three of these lanes that are like, “I was made for that.” And one, for sure, and maybe two, I don’t know about three, that you’d say, “I don’t ever need to go near work like that.” Because you can behave well at work and be awesome at your job and hate it, and what’s the point if you don’t enjoy what you’re getting to do?

Pete Mockaitis
Well, William, I dig this. So fast, prepared, purpose-driven, authenticity. Could you share one that’s maybe surprising? Like, folks say, “Huh, that’s a strength, that’s a lane I can lean into? I thought I was just weird”?

William Vanderbloemen
Yeah, well, there’s something about curiosity that is a lane for work, it’s a habit of unicorns, and it’s a bit counterintuitive to how a lot of people were raised. I was raised, “Don’t ask too many questions. Do what you’re told and you’ll do well at your job.”

In today’s world, you need to always be asking questions. You need to always be curious, “Why are we doing it that way?” The greatest value add of a longtime employee is their institutional memory which cannot be transfused in a day, right? But the greatest gift of a new team member is their ability to look at how we do things, and say, “Well, why do we do it that way? Why don’t we do it that way?”

The curious, who are always looking and always shifting and always asking the why, that might have been out of favor in an old-school world. But now that we’re in an open source, AI-driven world, it is everything. And one other that shows up that it’s not counterintuitive, but there’s a counterintuitive piece to it is agility.

There’s a lane for people who want to try new things. They’re always learning a habit or a hobby or something. The unhealthy version of it is the person who you say, “So what’s your favorite book you ever read?” And they say, “Oh, I just finished it.” And you ask them six months later, “What’s your favorite book?” “Oh, I just finished it.” It’s almost like a shiny object thing.

But the agile are the kind that can…I hate this word. It’s been five and a half years since the shutdowns and I still can’t hear the word pivot without thinking it’s a four-letter word. But people who can pivot will own the future because the world isn’t just changing annually now. It’s changing minute by minute with technological advances and such.

And here’s the surprising piece about agility, okay, “Oh, William, that makes sense. Agility, that’s a no-brainer.” Agility atrophies. It goes away a little bit every single day. And here’s the living example of that. I’m a jogger or a runner, it’s probably a matter of opinion, but I got into my 40s and I had to start stretching so I didn’t get injured. I hate doing all this stretching and preparation and I just want to go run.

Well, the stretching turned out to be harder than the running. And one time I was stretching, trying to touch my toes, and our littlest one walked in, and she sat down next to me, she tied herself into some form of human knot, and she untied herself, looked up at me, smiled, laughed out loud, left the room without saying a word. Just making total fun of me, because little kids can bend more than super Stretch Armstrong, right?

And as she left the room, it dawned on me, “Little kids can stretch, old men can’t.” Every day I’m alive, I get less flexible. So even if you’re naturally wired for agility, you have to work on it or it goes away. Every day a team is alive, it gets less flexible. Every day a company is alive, it gets less flexible. This is like a law of thermodynamics.

So the surprise about agility is not that it’s one of the lanes that you’d be looking at. The surprise is, even if you’re good at it, you’ve got to keep working at it. And if you’ll work just a little tiny bit every day, you’ll be way ahead of people as you get farther down the career road.

Pete Mockaitis
Yeah, that’s interesting. In some ways, it’s sort of inversely correlated with wisdom because it’s, like, you do some things, “Hey, that worked great. Let’s do that next time,” “Hey, that worked not great. Let’s not do that next time.”

And so then, over time, you’ve got a series of associations and memories in terms of, “This is good. This is bad,” “That works. That doesn’t work.” And then you’re naturally, I felt it in myself. I’m naturally less inclined to go try that wild thing. It’s like, “Hmm, that seems a lot like these other four things I’ve tried that didn’t work. So I don’t think I want to do that.”

William Vanderbloemen
But the pace of change, I read a study some years back that said there’s been more change – this is pre-pandemic – more change in the last 10 years than in the hundred years prior technologically. And now we’re on the other side of a pandemic, and we’re into the AI world. And the study went on to say, “More change in the last 10 years than the hundred prior. And the next 10 are going to make the last 10 look slow.”

So even if you aren’t working in a job where agility is your main lane, everyone needs to work on their agility because the world, where everything stays the same, first of all, it never existed. But, secondly, if it did exist, it exists a little less each day. The rate of change is growing. My personal ability to adapt to change is shrinking. And no matter what kind of job I’m doing, I’ve got to do everything I can to narrow that gap.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. Well, William, tell me, anything else you really want to make sure to mention before we hear about some of your favorite things?

William Vanderbloemen
No, I would just say, if you’re interested at all in these things, you can just go to Vanderbloemen.com. You don’t have to know how to spell it. Just try in whatever search browser you use, and you’ll find us. And there are probably five or 6,000 resources on how to be awesome at your job, how to win at work, how to manage employees, how to ask for a raise. There’s lots of stuff there that might help people past the two books we’ve talked about.

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

William Vanderbloemen
“Know thyself.”

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

William Vanderbloemen
The easy answer is go read Atomic Habits. There’s great stories in there about how to build habits. And I think probably 15 million people have done that now, so it’s doing all right as a book.

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

William Vanderbloemen
I have made a switch to trying to write things down rather than type them, and to try and be more present with people. So I have ditched the laptop in meetings now and I’m using reMarkable. I don’t know if you know this device.

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, yeah.

William Vanderbloemen
It’s a Notepad that feels like paper and then it uploads straight. It digitizes everything and it uploads straight into my Google Drive. I have all my notes from all my meetings, and I’m writing. And it’s, like, if you don’t have that laptop open.

It’s like the Simon Sinek talk, where he’s like, “Hey, let me show you the difference between distracted and not.” And he talks to people, and he says, “Now, you in the front row, give me your phone.” And he just holds it, and he says, “I’m not looking at this. Do I feel more or less engaged with you right now?” And, of course, the answer is less.

So I’m trying to remove things that make me less engaged with people, and one of those is the screen. It makes it hard to get back to people with a text within a minute, but I use my little reMarkable in every meeting now.

And I’ve heard it, growing up, I’m actually believing it more than ever, “What’s written is what’s remembered.” So the actual slowness of writing out each letter instead of typing 120 words a minute, there’s something to that that ingrains it in my brain, and I’m hoping it makes me more engaged and present with folks in the coming years.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. And is there a key nugget you share that really seems to connect and resonate with folks, you hear them quoted back to you often?

William Vanderbloemen
We have nine core values. They’re built around how we behave. One is called ridiculous responsiveness, and it’s just the power of getting back to people quickly and intentionally. And it’s in both books. You can read about it.

And I’ve had people say, “I took our whole staff of 500 people through the first chapter of Be the Unicorn and we built an entire strategy on getting back to people quicker, and it changed our business.” Like, over and over and over, I’m hearing people quote ridiculous responsiveness. I don’t know whether we came up with it or not, but it’s what I hear.

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

William Vanderbloemen
Try spelling Vanderbloemen into any search engine, you’ll find it.

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

William Vanderbloemen
Yeah, just get to know yourself. And that sounds selfish. It’s not. Once you know how you’re wired, you’ll know where you’re going to flourish the best.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. William, thank you.

William Vanderbloemen
Thank you, Pete. Appreciate you having me on.