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Apr 10
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1048: Transforming Insecurities into Strength and Action with Margie Warrell

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Margie Warrell explores how to build the courage to move beyond fear and unlock new possibilities.

You’ll Learn

  1. How to identify your insecurities and overcome them
  2. The two dimensions of courage
  3. How to take action despite your fear

About Margie

Margie Warrell is a five-time best-selling author, keynote speaker, leadership coach, and Forbes columnist. With twenty-five years of experience living and working around the world, she has dedicated her life to helping others overcome fear and unlock their potential.

From her humble beginnings on a small farm in rural Australia to her former role as a Senior Partner at Korn Ferry and Advisory Board member for the Forbes School of Business & Technology, Margie has learned that courage is essential for every worthwhile endeavor. A mother of four and an advocate for women’s empowerment, she inspires others to live bravely and refuse to settle in any aspect of life.

Resources Mentioned

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Margie Warrell Interview Transcript

Pete Mockaitis
Margie, welcome!

Margie Warrell
Great to be with you.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, I’m super excited to hear your perspectives on courage. And I want to start by hearing, what’s one of the most surprising and fascinating and counterintuitive discoveries you’ve made about courage in your career and researching this matter?

Margie Warrell
Ah, it’s probably that courage is not always about stepping bravely forward, putting yourself out there, saying a big yes and climbing out onto the far limb. Sometimes courage is saying no, sitting still, doing nothing, and reconnecting, disconnecting, pressing pause on all the doing and the bold acts of bravery, and just reconnecting with who we’re being, and being still and being unproductive. That is, sometimes, even more challenging and requires even more courage than being busily in action.

Pete Mockaitis
Intriguing. Could you share with us a story that illustrates that?

Margie Warrell
Well, look, I’ll share from my own life. So, I am someone who has a bias for action. I am someone who tends to be an Energizer bunny, sort of productive, productive, doing, doing, doing, doing. That’s almost my comfort zone is to be out there, furiously working hard, and doing a lot of things and juggling many balls. And that can be, in some ways, affirming of a sense of identity, and I’m in action.

And so, for me, over the years, is recognizing that there is actually a deep-seated fear of slowing down and doing nothing because, “Well, what if I become lazy? What if I never achieve anything again? What if this means I’m amount to nothing? What if…?” And so, just looking at where fear is pulling the strings and sometimes pushing me into the state of doing and busyness, and actually confronting that and going, “You know what, I don’t have to do more to be worthy. I don’t have to achieve more to be worthy. I am worthy.”

And, actually, right now, the most valuable thing for me to do is to just sit and pause and get really present and grounded in who I am and what I’m about rather than being in action. And then that enables me to then actually upgrade my action so that when I go back into action, I’m far more aligned, have far more clarity, much more intentional about what I’m doing. So, does that make sense?

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, yeah, intriguing. And I’d love if you could share a little bit more in terms of what are the scariest things that may be lurking for us in the solitude, in the quiet, in that silence?

Margie Warrell
Well, we have to come face to face with just like who we are at the deepest place because it’s easy, busyness can be a great tool for distraction. When we’re busy, it almost can be addictive because it can be feeding us and giving us a sense of significance. And, I mean, we all want to feel significant in our lives. To be human is to want to feel significant in some way. And we can achieve that through healthy means and we can achieve it through unhealthy means.

And I think that the busyness can provide that sense of, sort of like, “Oh, you know, look at all that I’m doing.” And people are going, “Wow, aren’t you doing a lot?” And so, the confronting part of just pressing pause on that is to go, “Who am I if I’m not doing that? And what are the deepest fears that are sometimes lurking there out of immediate line of sight?”

And I think, for many of us, there’s a deep-seated fear of being unworthy, of being judged and found wanting, “You are not smart enough. You are not clever, capable, experienced, intelligent, educated, likable, lovable, leader-like enough,” insert something before the word enough. And I think it’s part of the deep work of growing into who we can become to kind of pull back the covers on those fears.

Because they’re not always obvious but they can pull invisible strings that shape how we show up, how we speak up, the presence that we give to other people, how we lead, whether or not we are in tapping into our own intuitive sense of what’s going on around us and what’s going on for the people around us so that we can speak into their listening and be someone that builds trust and others come to count on  for the integrity and the character and the courage that we bring to situations, but not always loud courage, sometimes quiet courage.

Pete Mockaitis
And when you say enough, I always wonder, enough for what?

Margie Warrell
Yeah, enough. Enough of what gives us a sense of innate worthiness.

Pete Mockaitis
Enough to have worthiness.

Margie Warrell
And so, yeah, when people say enough, that can be many things, right?

Pete Mockaitis
Okay, enough for your life to, fundamentally, have value.

Margie Warrell
Yeah, for you to have value.

Pete Mockaitis
A human being identity.

Margie Warrell
Yeah, and I think that can be, we can carry sometimes a sense of inadequacy in that we’re flawed, fallible in some way. And of course, let’s face it, we are all flawed and we are all fallible in some way. None of us are, get a 10 out of 10 on every category. That is part of the human condition, right? And so, my experience for myself, but also working with people, many whom have achieved incredible success, there’s often this insecurity in them that can be driving and driving, and actually can drive them to be work really hard and achieve amazing things.

But actually, they get to a level and that insecurity, if they haven’t done the inner work required to make peace with their vulnerabilities, to heal those childhood wounds, then that insecurity actually can cap them and ultimately can be a saboteur.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, I would love to get your pro take. You’ve been working with many CEOs of large organizations with your time at Korn Ferry and your own work. So, just for funsies, could you share with us, roughly what percent of super high-achieving, big-deal executives have substantial levels of insecurity?

Margie Warrell
Well, substantial is a big word. But what percentage of high-achieving executives have some insecurity? I don’t want to say 100%, but I would say close to it because we all have something in us that can feel insecure at times. We all have moments of feeling insecure. None of us are invulnerable to things that can trigger something in us. So, I would say it’s close to 100 % of high-achieving executives have moments where they can feel insecure. But it’s whether they have their insecurities or their insecurities have them.

And so, when you use the word substantial insecurities, well, then that’s where, obviously, there’s a lot of insecurities that are running them versus them going, “Yeah, I’ve got this thing. This can make me feel insecure, but I’m self-aware enough.” And that’s where that self-awareness is so crucial to being a great leader, to being an effective executive, because we aren’t being governed by our insecurities and our fears.

And, of course, our fears don’t always show up as, “Oh, I’m really nervous. I’m so scared I’m going to mess this up.” You know, it’s not necessarily paralysis, it’s not panic, it’s not outward, overt self-doubt. More often, those insecurities can show up as intellectualizing emotions, being controlling, not delegating downward effectively, micromanaging, second-guessing people, being someone that is not okay with being challenged, so people don’t challenge because they know that this runs a risk.

And so, there’s lots of different ways that our insecurity, and let’s just be clear here, insecurity is just another term for an unfaced fear, an unprocessed fear.

Pete Mockaitis
Certainly. Well, so you nailed it in terms of that’s what I mean by substantial insecurity, like you have a hard time being wrong or letting someone else shine, or clearly acknowledging humbly, it’s like, “Yeah, you know a lot more about this thing than I do. So, I’m going to let you take over.”

Margie Warrell
Yeah, you bet.

Pete Mockaitis
“And, hey, I like your idea better than mine. Let’s go with yours and forget what I said.”

Margie Warrell
And not just that, but actively seeking that out, too, and saying to people in the room, “Hey, look, I don’t know everything. You know, what is it that I could be missing here?” And actively soliciting people to put forward opinions that may actually contradict or, if not contradict, may not line squarely up with your own.

And when they say those things, that you might actually disagree with, you might actually think they’re wrong. And maybe they’re critical of you and the judgment that you’ve made, that you don’t get defensive, and you go, “Wow, tell me more about that. Tell me more about that.” And that people never have to hesitate to say that. And, to me, that is an indicator of a leader who has done their work, and who is well and truly leading from values and not emotions and not insecurity.

Because no matter what anyone says about them, they don’t get triggered by that, they don’t take offense, “How could you say that?” They’re, like, curious, they’re humble, they’re eager to learn and they listen with an ear to how they could be wrong. And then they always acknowledge when they’ve changed their mind and they share that, and go, “You know, I thought this, but, yeah, I realized I was wrong. I wasn’t factoring in these other things,” and they can share that openly. And there’s a lot of senior executives who are not in a place where they’re able to do that.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, yeah, that’s what I’m getting at. I think you’ve painted a lovely picture on what I mean by substantial insecurity versus substantial security. So, could you give us a very rough figure, like, at the top levels, who’s got that substantial insecurity and who doesn’t as a rough percentage?

Margie Warrell
I would say a solid 50%.

Pete Mockaitis
Fifty-fifty, all right.

Margie Warrell
Yeah, I mean, that could vary and it varies in organizations because there’s different cultures. So, I’ve worked in organizations where the culture is very grounded in purpose, and values, and authenticity, and people who posture and who are ego-driven, you know, overtly ego-driven. Their behavior gets, their, like, white bloods, they get ejected out.

Like, they can be really brilliant at what they do. But it’s like, at the end of the day, people are recognizing, “Ah, very ego-driven.” They’re an insecure person, even though they might be brilliant at what they do. And so, then there’s cultures where, “You know what, it’s about what are your numbers? Honestly, we don’t care much about all the other stuff. What are your numbers?”

And sometimes the people who get the best numbers are people who can be massively ego-driven and not the least bit, or very only mildly self-aware. And so, it’s all about, “Hah, who’s winning?Who’s winning? And who can get the biggest number fastest?” And that gets rewarded and that gets promoted.

And so, you end up with an executive bench of people who are all very, very ego-driven, competitive, but not necessarily particularly self-aware.

Whenever executive teams don’t make great decisions, and you see over time, there’s a leakage of value and the organization starts to lose edge and the culture grows, there’s toxic elements to it and disengagement and higher turnover, etc., it’s never because the people on that executive team lack intelligence individually or collectively, that they lack expertise and skill individually or collectively, that they lack access to information and resources.

It is because of the ego, and I’m talking about ego, I’m talking like, “I got to prove that I’m right and you’re wrong,” and there’s a defensiveness and it’s that insecurity at play because that undermines the dynamics in the team, and it undermines the quality of decision-making. There is not open, candid conversations. There is silos. There is protecting of information. There is a whole lot of conversations going on outside of the room. There is not good upward and sideways feedback.

And all of those factors at play, they are what create this slow leakage of value that, over time, you see organizations start to lose edge. And so, yeah, it’s not that they don’t know what to do, it’s that they’re not doing what they know.

Pete Mockaitis
Yeah, this reminds me, we had Pat Lencioni on the show and talking about smart versus healthy with regard to teams and dynamics and how it’s, a lot of times they got the know-how, but in terms of the courage and going there and having those conversations, it’s great.

So, it sounds like we’re pretty strong on the case here for how having more courage will help you be more awesome at your job with regard to just feeling good, facing down those monsters, as well as better teamwork, etc. Any other key things you’d put forward in terms of the case for why professionals would be better off with an extra dose of courage?

Margie Warrell
Well, let me just share, there’s two core dimensions to courage. And we often focus in on the field of fear and do it anyway, “Be bold. Take a risk. Put yourself out there. Set a bold vision. Have the crucial conversations. Take those risks for yourself, professionally,” in terms of then leading how you manage others.

But what we often fail to factor in is the second dimension of courage, and that is the regulation of our fear, the management of our anxious thinking. Because courage is action in the presence of fear and the presence of risks, real or perceived, but often we’re more afraid than we need to be. And right now, it’s a perfect case in point.

There are a lot of people right now who are feeling incredibly anxious because there is immense uncertainty. Yes, there is a new administration in the White House. There has been massive disruption. The markets are volatile. People are worried about the future. But you know what? There’s always been uncertainty. We’ve always had disruption. And, yes, it may feel like, “Oh, no, but not like this.” But these times have come before and they’ve gone before.

And so, a lot of the time we are victim to what’s called certainty bias. When we look back at the past, we know how the story ended, so we go, “No, it wasn’t like this,” because we don’t know how the story is going to end. But five years from now, we’re going to look back on this moment right now and go, “Oh, well, you know, it worked out,” and because there’s going to be new uncertainty.

So, often people are feeling more anxious than they need to be, and anxiety magnifies our perceptions of risk. And people pull back and they triple on what they can control and they try and find certainty so they get really short-sighted, and then they fail to take the very actions that would actually expand future possibilities, that would grow and accelerate learning curves, so that they’d be in a better position for whatever unfolds out the other side of this disruption, whether that’s Gen AI, whether that’s regulatory policy changing, etc.

And so, I think it’s just so important for people to realize it’s not just about, “Be brave. Just put yourself out there.” It’s also going, “Where am I scaring myself because of how I am perceiving all of the risks and all the uncertainty and all the unknowns? And where am I being a little short-sighted and not looking far enough ahead to the horizon and go, what is it that I could be doing right now that will put me in a better position, one, three, five years from now?”

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. Well, can you share with us what are some of your favorite tips, tricks, interventions, actions, things to do to get more courage?

Margie Warrell
Well, obviously in The Courage Gap, I talk about five key principles for closing that gap between what we could do and what we actually do, between our insight and the impact we make for ourselves, for others. And the first one of those principles is focusing on what it is that you want, what is the highest outcome you want to achieve.

And that could be, right now, today, “With an employee, my boss, a co-worker, I’m having a difficult time with. There’s a lot of frustration. Maybe I’m feeling really resentful toward them. Maybe I’m feeling underappreciated.” So, ask yourself, what is your highest intention for that relationship? Or, if it’s your career, “What is my highest intention for my career over the next one year, three years, five, 10?”

Because, if we’re not clear about what it is we want, our vision and our values, then our attention is going to be held captive by what it is we don’t want, because fear is a really potent emotion. We naturally gravitate to the negatives, to what’s wrong, to what we can’t do, to what we hope won’t happen.

And so, there is a huge power that we unlock within ourselves, but also it expands our field of vision of what actions we can take when we connect to what it is we do want and what our highest intention is, what our ultimate outcome is, because what we focus on expands. Energy multiplies by a factor of what our attention is on.

And so, that is a key principle. And many people don’t realize how much of their time and how much of their energy and how many of their conversations are all about what is wrong, and what can’t be done, and what shouldn’t happen, and what a pain their boss is, or what a pain this colleague is, versus “What can they do? What do they have? What do they want? How can they work better with this colleague? How can they help foster a better relationship with their boss?”

And the way I could go about doing that versus kind of being stuck in either a self-pity, you know, feeling like a bit of a victim or getting stuck into a blame like, “Ugh,” or just having a story that we are powerless to improve our situation, which is never true. And the biggest way we disempower ourselves is telling ourselves we can’t do anything.

Pete Mockaitis
Now, when you say highest intention, you mean highest in the sense of most noble and in fulfillment of our deepest, most important values, as opposed to just a really big achievement, like high, like Mount Everest high.

Margie Warrell
The two don’t have to be mutually exclusive. So, you can have a really high intention to live a life of adventure and do amazing things, and that means you want to climb Mount Everest. But it also could mean, “I want to have a really good relationship with the people on my team. I want to do what I can to be the kind of person that I would want to work with.” But the highest intention, whatever it is, it has to align with our deepest values. So, what are your deepest values that want to define you and how you live your life?

And it’s funny you mentioned, you know, climbing a mountain. Several years back, I climbed Mount Kilimanjaro with my husband and our four teenage children, which was a pretty bold, audacious undertaking at the time because we lived at sea level in Australia. We didn’t go mountain climbing on weekends for fun because there weren’t any mountains near us. And so, it was pretty bold to kind of go, “All right, let’s do this.”

But one of my kids, Ben, said, “Hey, wouldn’t it be cool to climb Mount Kilimanjaro for dad’s 50th birthday?” He did this whole PowerPoint deck. He rallied the whole family behind this vision of climbing to the rooftop of Africa for dad’s 50th, “Our family will always remember it.” So, we created an intention for, as a family, right, to do this thing that would be so cool. There was a chance we weren’t going to get to the top. The altitude can really take a toll on our bodies, particularly younger bodies. My youngest was 13 at the time, but that intention to do that is what kind of galvanized our collective resolve to go, “Let’s try.”

And as it was, we did make it to the top of Kilimanjaro. It was a really tough day, but our intention will always align with some value. I mean, I have no desire to climb Mount Everest after climbing Kilimanjaro, but for us as a family, like this would be a really cool thing to do as a family. That was a value.

But for some people, it could be, “I want to just build a business that contributes to my community, that serves the needs of these customers, these people in my local geography,” or maybe it’s to do something that’s on a global scale, but there’s still a value that it’s aligned with. But for people listening to this, I know for me, professionally, I have always wanted to do work that aligned with, one, yes, my value to make an impact for others, to help others live their purpose, to use their talents for the greater good, but also to use my talents in a way that honors those talents.

And so, we all have different talents. People, we come out of the womb with different gifts and, yes, we have to hone them. But so it could be that you just really want to do something that lights you up. You’re leveraging your strengths fully. We thrive the most when we are leveraging our strengths in service of something that’s meaningful to us versus something that’s purely superficial. And while when we’re younger, sometimes it is superficial. As we go through life, people who thrive the most are doing things, they’re working hard toward meaningful goals.

Pete Mockaitis
Yes, and I guess that’s what I’m zeroing in on when I say highest intention is it’s like, you could have, maybe you want to build a business to prove everyone wrong, “They thought I couldn’t do it. Look at me now.” Or it’s like, “I want to have a sick Lamborghini.” So, these are things that motivate some people. But I’m guessing that if we dig deeper into values work, those wouldn’t be, in fact, the highest intention that have the most potency for boosting the courage.

Margie Warrell
Well, look, and if you love cars and you want to have a Lamborghini, like, great, knock yourself out and work hard for that Lamborghini. I’m not a car person myself, but if your sense of security and identity is coming from sources outside of yourself, then you will always feel a little insecure. Because once you’ve got that Lamborghini and you drive it right up the main street of town and you’ve got the music blaring and you’re making sure everyone’s looking at you, and they’re like, “Wow, you’ve got a Lamborghini.” It’s like, “Great, it feels good. Like, yeah. See? See my Lamborghini?”

But, okay, after a while, it gets a little, it wears off. We habituate to, “Okay, now what do I have to do?” Because it’s a cup with a hole in the bottom. It’s never going to fill up if your sense of worth and value has to be externally validated all the time. And that’s not to say, it’s natural to want to have external validation. I love external validation.

But if that’s what our identity is built on, it’s going to be built on a house of cards because, you know, what happens if you lose your Lamborghini? What happens if you lose all your money? That can happen. That does happen to people. And so, I think we have to be really careful about where our sense of identity comes from. And there is no greater source of identity than being really living in alignment with our values. It is got to be an internally sourced identity versus externally validated all the time.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. So, we’ve got five principles. The first is the highest intention. What’s the next?

Margie Warrell
Second is re-scripting the narratives that are keeping you stuck, stressed, or living too safely. So, of course, we all tell ourselves stories all the time, like, “Oh, it’s a nice day out there today.” As it is, while I’m talking to you, I can see the cherry blossoms coming out here in North Virginia. But sometimes our stories get in our way and keep us from doing the very things that would serve us.

So, our stories can stoke up our fear. They can make us feel more stressed like, you know, we tell ourselves stories, “Oh, it’s the end of the world,” “I’m never going to get another job,” “I’m too old.” There’s a lot, I’m surrounded by people who use even language, “It’s a nightmare situation. I’m never going to be able to figure this out.”

And so, they make themselves feel more stressed than they need to be. But sometimes our stories can give us air cover for living too safely, for going, “Oh, well, you know, it’s not so bad. And everybody else has got it worse than me. Or, at least I’ve got a job.” And I’m like, “Yeah, but are you happy in your job?” “Yeah, but at least it pays the bills.” I’m like, “Come on, like life’s short.” And so, we can often tell ourselves stories that keep us from taking the very actions we’re wholly capable of taking.

Sometimes we tell ourselves lies. We call them vital lies, the soothing myths, truths that spare us from having to look at ourself and go, “What is the price I’m paying for the story that I’m telling myself? It’s making me feel okay in the moment, but it’s actually keeping me stuck. It’s actually keeping me from connecting in more meaningful ways with other people, or making a change that I know deep, deep down, I really need to make because I’m not feeling a sense of purpose. I’m not feeling like I’m living the life I want to be living?”

And so, just recognizing that if your stories aren’t making you feel more powerful, like they’re not empowering you, if they’re not aligning with something that gives you a sense of meaning and purpose, and if they’re not making you feel more positive about your future, then your stories are working against you.

And I often say to people, like, “Tell me, what’s your ultimate vision of success?” And then they’ll go, “Well…” And when they let themselves really connect with that vision and they focus on what they want, I’m like, “Well, what story would you need to be telling yourself for that to become your reality?” because our beliefs are the software of behavior. Everything we do is belief-driven. So, what’s the story that you need to tell yourself so that you’ll take the actions to create the outcomes you want?

And if you’re feeling stuck in your career or you’re feeling like you’re hitting your head against a wall, I would just say to you, like, “What’s the story you’ve been telling yourself? And what emotions does that create? Where is that keeping you playing too small? Where is that keeping you stuck in excuses? Where is that keeping you showing up in a more diminutive way than really serves you? And so, what’s another story you could tell and re-script that story? Because you create your stories, but your stories then create you.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. And the third principle?

Margie Warrell
The third principle is about embodying courage and connecting to the sources of courage within us, but also around us in our relationships with others. And often we don’t recognize how we’re moving through the world in an anxious state. John Wooden, the great iconic basketball coach, once said, “It’s not about how tall you are. It’s about how tall you play.”

And often we don’t realize how much fear is trapped in our bodies, keeping us from showing up, stepping up, speaking up, walking into a room in a way that not only changes how others perceive us, but changes how we perceive ourselves. Some great research out of the Kellogg School of Business that found that postural expansiveness literally shifts how people perceive us, as well as how we perceive ourselves, regardless of our actual status on an organization chart. And so, just stand tall and take a deep breath and reset your nervous system, named a nervous system for reason at that ground level, and, likewise, connect with people around you who make you feel braver, who help to quell the doubts versus to feed them.

 

Pete Mockaitis
All right. And the fourth?

Margie Warrell
That’s about stepping into discomfort and really resetting our relationship with discomfort. All of us are wired to want to avoid what’s uncomfortable, but the more willing you are to do uncomfortable things and embracing discomfort, embracing the growing pains, it actually will expand your behavioral repertoire to do the very things that are going to set you up for success.

And there is a lot to be said for recognizing that our fear constricts what we do. And the more we’re willing to get comfortable, practice getting comfortable being uncomfortable, then it expands us to do all sorts of things. Because when you’re willing to feel anything, it emboldens you for everything.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. And the fifth?

Margie Warrell
And the fifth is all about making peace with our failures and making peace with ourselves for failing to show up as the person we most want to be sometimes because no one is brave all the time. And the more we can be kind to ourselves in those moments when we either try something and fail, or we fail to try, and that little inner Chicken Little wins out, then the quicker we’ll be able to pick ourselves up, to dust ourselves off, to learn the lessons that our failures and our mistakes hold, and then to move forward more wisely.

And for those who are listening who can be really hard on themselves, I think this final step which is about finding the treasure when you trip can be the most, the biggest unlock because we’re so often really hard on ourselves. And when you’re really hard on yourself, it doesn’t make you braver. It actually makes you live a little smaller and hold back from taking the very risks that would serve you most.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. Well, let’s talk about the rescripting narratives for a bit. Could you give us a common narrative that you’ve seen hold folks back and an example of a finer script to replace it?

Margie Warrell
Yes. So, as people are moving up in their careers, often they’ll look at management, the leadership, and it’s them, they over there, you know, “They don’t care. They have no idea what’s going on. They’re just, you know, they’re all so disconnected and removed from what it’s really like to try and run this business at the ground level and deal with the clients, etc.”

And so, there’s this kind of othering of those people in management, those who are on the executive team. And the reality is those people were once in your shoes, and sometimes people become the they, and they realize, “You know, if only management…” I’m like, “You are management. You are the they, like this is you.”

But wherever you sit on your career trajectory and on some org chart, recognizing that you have the power to be a leader at every level. And so, rescripting it about how you see yourself in your own power, like, “I am a leader. I have the ability to influence change here. And, sure, I mightn’t have as much as the person at the top, but I have the ability to lead change in the sphere of influence in my workplace every day.” So, that’s one re-script.

Another key one I hear people talking about is other people and saying things like, “Ugh, they’re so intimidating. They don’t care,” and they create negative narratives, and maybe there’s some evidence to support them. But when it comes to saying someone is intimidating or something, “That person is an a-hole,” or something like that, ask yourself instead, “What is it that’s going on in me that needs me to judge them? That person’s going to be how that person’s going to be, but how do I choose to show up?”

So, I choose to show up as someone who is empowered and is focused on bringing value regardless of how the behavior of others around me, and by reclaiming kind of the power that I get to choose how I show up, regardless of what other people are doing. And that often when we call other people intimidating, actually they’re not intimidating. It’s the story you’re telling yourself about them that’s making you feel intimidated. It’s got nothing to do with them. It’s got everything to do with you. So, yeah, there’s a couple of examples right there. I hope that’s of value.

Pete Mockaitis
Yeah, well, thank you. Well, tell me, Margie, anything else you want to make sure to mention before we hear about your favorite things?

Margie Warrell
Well, I would simply say if there’s something that’s causing you stress right now, that just keeps coming up again and again, maybe in different clothes, but it’s just a recurring issue, in there, lays your greatest growth. In there is an un-face fear, there is fear in some form that’s kept you from addressing it more effectively.

Maybe taking ownership for something that you’re doing that’s contributing to it, that you’d rather blame it on everyone else. But recognizing that those things that test you the most, also teach you the most and can be the catalyst for your highest growth and transformation.

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

Margie Warrell
Anais, Nin, “Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one’s courage.”

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

Margie Warrell
My favorite study is the work of Amy Edmondson out of Harvard on psychological safety, and that it’s the teams that report the most mistakes that are actually the highest performing because they feel safe enough to be able to share the truth.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. And a favorite book?

Margie Warrell
My favorite book would be The Road Less Traveled by Scott Peck.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. And a favorite tool you use to be awesome at your job?

Margie Warrell
My daily planner.

Pete Mockaitis
And a favorite habit?

Margie Warrell
Reading wisdom literature first thing in the morning over my cup of tea in the early hours to set my intention for the day.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. And is there a Margie original sound bite or nugget that people quote back to you often?

Margie Warrell
Yes, and that’s “Living bravely is indispensable for living well.”

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

Margie Warrell
They can head over to my website, MargieWarrell.com, or just connect with me on LinkedIn or anywhere that you hang out on social media, or my Live Brave Podcast.

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

Margie Warrell
Thank you. I invite people to take my courage quiz. If you head over to my website, to “The Courage Gap” page, you’ll see The Courage Quiz, and I invite you to take it because it’ll help you identify where the courage gaps are in your life and how you can close them.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. Margie, thank you.

Margie Warrell
Thank you.

Apr 07
0

1047: How to Reignite Purpose, Happiness, and Motivation at Work with Jennifer Moss

By | Podcasts | One Comment

Jennifer Moss gets to the heart of why so many are dissatisfied at work—and what we can do about it.

You’ll Learn

  1. The driving force behind our unhappiness at work
  2. 20-minute practices that rebuild hope and morale
  3. Why remote work isn’t the culprit for loneliness—and what is

About Jennifer

Jennifer Moss specializes in future-focused leadership development, expertly balancing employee well-being with performance. As an award-winning writer and internationally acclaimed keynote speaker, she specializes in transforming workplace culture using data-driven leadership strategies. She writes for Harvard Business Review, sat on the United Nations’ Global Happiness Council, was named to the Thinkers50 radar, and has been featured in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, CNBC, CNN, Marketplace, TIME, Fortune, Fast Company, and more. Her book The Burnout Epidemic tackled employee burnout and was among Thinkers50’s “10 Best New Management Books for 2022.”

Resources Mentioned

Thank You, Sponsors!

Jennifer Moss Interview Transcript

Pete Mockaitis
Jen, welcome back.

Jennifer Moss
I’m so glad to be back. It’s been a while.

Pete Mockaitis
It sure has. Eight whole years. Boy, a lot could happen in that timeframe. Can you share with us something transformational you’ve learned over the last eight years?

Jennifer Moss
As I’ve gotten older and I think become a little bit more, aware that change takes a really long time to happen, and you sometimes move sideways, and you move backwards.

And yet there has been, when I look back to when I first wrote Unlocking Happiness at Work, and now Why Are We Here, there has been some real advancement in the discussion around happiness and well-being at work and that’s a positive thing that I think has been really impactful on me and my level of hope for the future.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. Hope is good. We like hope. More of that, please. So, tell us, in your book, Why Are We Here?: Creating a Work Culture Everyone Wants, any particularly fascinating discoveries you’ve made along the way?

Jennifer Moss
There is just such brilliant research going on out there that’s been untapped and we need to spend more time, I think, with our academic partners in workplaces because it’s just so necessary to learn that there are ways that we can actually improve the workforce.

And I broke the book out into these three parts, the foundations, which is really hope, purpose, and community, and then I go into the second part, which is all of these unbelievable shifts that have happened at work in the last five years that feel like we’re in the multiverse of work. This isn’t the future of work. It’s the multiverse of work. And it really is dealing with AI and the rapid evolution of technology and generational bias and how that’s polarized the workforce. And then also just flexibility now, a right not a perk.

And so, I talk about that from a sense of compassionate leadership and leaders having a sense of openness as a leader, and really around understanding freedom. And then the third part is how we’re going to get there as a collective, and that’s belonging and recognition. And so, this, for me, across the board, every single chapter was this real understanding of the psychological barriers that we’re all facing as human beings that keep us from feeling and behaving with those kinds of traits. And so, it was a lot of learning and a lot of self-discovery too, as a leader myself.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, there’s a lot of rich stuff to dig into here. Thank you. Can you tell us, in terms of the academic community, sort of researchers doing studies and publishing them in journals, is there a particular discovery or thing that is well understood amongst academics looking at this stuff, that is generally not at all, or not frequently, implemented in the real world?

Jennifer Moss
Yes, and, one, is I would say it’s the first chapter, which is really interesting because today Gallup just put a note, basically, that hope is what every single organization needs to be fostering to be able to build out a future-ready organization, and it is the first chapter of my book. And, actually, John Clifton was interviewed, and he’s the CEO of Gallup, and talked about kind of the book and the importance of the book, and I think it’s because he had been seeing this hope need and this loss of hope inside of organizations.

And the thing is we constantly say in leadership, “Hope isn’t a strategy, and we can’t make hope a strategy.” And the thing is that leaders are getting that completely wrong. When I interviewed senior leaders in the military, they said hope is their only strategy. They always make hope foundational to the mission because how is anyone going to put their life on the line if they don’t have hope that they’re going to be able to achieve the end goal?

And so, in the book, I talk about how practical it is to build hope. It’s easier than building empathy and almost any other trait because it’s really, it’s tactical and you build it through these small incremental settings of goals, having the agency and the support to get to those goals, and then creating plan Bs and plan Cs so that if one plan to your goal fails, you have another plan as a backup.

And so, I talk about how we can do this, like 20 minutes every single week can build cognitive hope in an organization. It’s not hard, and I think that it’s been easy to put it off as something that’s simple and too simple to be valuable, and instead, it’s actually so needed right now.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. Well, so hope, we need it, got to have it, are missing it. Can you define, specifically, what do we mean by hope?

Jennifer Moss
Hope right now is this kind of key trait that we need to get people to feel like they can see themselves inside of society, writ large, but also inside of our organizations. If you don’t have hope, you feel disconnected from the mission because you don’t see yourself as part of the future. You also have anxiety around things that are new. AI, for example, if you see yourself as becoming obsolete, and you don’t have hope that you are part of that picture of an organization, you disengage, you’re less productive.

Hopelessness makes you have to be in a survivor state every day and you’re not thriving so you’re not actually thinking about the future, which is what we need right now. We’re just moving so quickly that if we don’t have a future perspective in our organizations, and people are in just survivor mode every day, we’re going to see attrition or we’re going to see what Gallup calls the Great Detachment, which people are at work, but they’re extremely unhappy, they’re actively disengaged, and they’re actually spending time trying to get other people to be as unhappy as they are, which creates a social contagion and it’s really unhealthy.

Pete Mockaitis
Understood. So, hope, very important. And so, what exactly is hope?

Jennifer Moss
Hope is a sense of feeling that you are encouraged by the future, that you see that yourself in the future, that you feel like you have a legacy, that you have a sense of mattering and meaning in the world, that the world itself cares about you, that the world itself is safe, and you feel psychologically safe in it. Hope comes a lot with a sense of community. So, you believe that there are people there for you in a time of need.

Whether it’s actually tested or not, it’s a perception that you have social support, and that’s a big part of a sense of hopefulness inside of your community, inside of society, and your place inside the world.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. So, I’m hearing that hope is a belief, and it seems to encompass a lot of things. Could you tell me in one sentence, how are we defining hope in this context?

Jennifer Moss
I think I just described it, but, yeah, hope is…

Pete Mockaitis
Yeah, I guess it’s like a lot of things, but like what is the umbrella that is encompassing all of those things?

Jennifer Moss
Hope is a sense that everything is going to be all right.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay, cool. A sense that everything’s going to be all right. And so, then we’ve sort of already gotten a sneak peek at some of those segments there. And so, within everything being all rightness, there’s a component associated with the future, like what will unfold. There’s a component associated with community and people and relationships, like I feel a sense of comfort and belonging in their midst. And I guess, are those the key pillars? Or, what would be the subcomponents of this belief?

Jennifer Moss
I mean, you just listed really all of what those subcomponents are to hope. But I think the important part right now to, I think, for us to focus on is the fact that we have a high rate of hopelessness inside of our world right now.

Globally, the sense of hope is significantly reduced. And that’s because we have moved from a state of the pandemic being a crisis, but we’re in poly-crisis right now, which is a cluster of crises that have all come together to make each crisis actually worse than if it was individually on its own. And so, that poly-crisis, that sense of always feeling uncertain, that fluidity of our lives and never feeling on solid ground, that is creating a lot of questioning.

This is why I wrote the book Why Are We Here? because people are feeling like a lot of “what’s the point-ism?” And you feel that if you don’t have a sense of hope that you are doing something that actually is going to make a difference, that the belief systems that you had and the infrastructure that you trusted is going to stay a trustworthy institution. And our hope is being eroded by a lot of the issues around the world and poly-crisis and this political instability, and that is eroding our connection to each other and our sense of who we are as human beings.

I mean, progress and cooperation are a big part of what make humans, humans, and successful. And we’re not going to feel cooperative if we haven’t felt hopeful that there’s a reason for it. And hope gives you a reason for being, and without that, we lose progress, we lose innovation, we lose a sense of societal congruency, which is, I think, one of the biggest problems that we’re seeing right now is this real separation and disconnectedness amongst people today.

Pete Mockaitis
Yeah, it’s a cluster all right, Jen. Poly-crisis, that’s a good turn of a phrase. I hear you in that when there’s multiple things, it does really feel greater than the sum of its parts, like, “Let’s worry about one thing, and take your pick, politics, climate change, my economic footing, AI is going to take away my job, like, fill in the blank.”

And then if you have multiple, you can just leap from crisis to crisis and really dwell in it. And once one gets boring for your brain, oh, not to worry, we can anxiously stew and ruminate on another one. I served up right for you. So, a cluster, indeed. And so, the “What’s the point?” I think that really hits it for me.

And I was grilling you a few times on the precise definition of hope, it’s like I think the “what’s the point-ness” really does feel, at an emotional gut level, like the vibe, the experiential definition of hopelessness. And then I guess if we take the opposite of that, it’s like, “Well, what’s the point?” I mean, like, “Hey, we’re making a cool thing happen with people we care about to make things better for all of us and a group of folks that we’re serving. That’s the point. So, we’re going to get after that, and that feels pretty good to our just basic human longings for progress and cooperation.”

Jennifer Moss
Yeah, and if people feel like everything they’re working on is some sort of pipe dream that’s not going to be realized, you can imagine inside of organizations that want to build new things and get people excited about new innovations. productizations of cool stuff that it just will, you know, it just makes people feel like, “Why bother? If I’m going to see this thing through and at the end, it’s just not going to actually matter or it’s not going to affect any change.”

And when you look at the data around people that have a sense of purpose and their goals being realized, it’s such a different type of mentality and level of performance in an employee. If you feel like, “Okay, I have leadership that’s going to see my project through, they support me, they give me the resources, and then they’re going to amplify it or use it,” you’re much more eager to try new things and experiment and put yourself at risk.

You’re not going to see that if people feel like they’re constantly in this rotation of projects that never actually end up going anywhere, or that the organization is only building something that isn’t going to improve the world. You see so many Gen Z’s attracted to organizations with purpose, they feel tied to the end goals, and they’re rejecting organizations that don’t foster that.

And so, we need to be able to recognize that when there’s hopelessness, people are seeking hope, so they’re going to be more even more inclined to be attracted to companies and work that support that sense of purpose.

Pete Mockaitis
And you said there’s a 20-minute practice that builds hope. What is it?

Jennifer Moss
Well, and I keep saying, like, culture can be built in 20 minutes or less, and middle managers play a huge role in that, and hope can be built just through this idea of setting a goal and having a manager and the organization support you getting to that goal without micromanaging you or making it about hours worked, not the goal itself. Like, the productivity measure shouldn’t even be relevant here. And then having people come up with different pathways to getting there.

This is Snyder’s theory of hope and it’s really applicable in the workforce. You see Google with their OKRs they’re really looking at, and the way that they do goal setting within the organization. It really is peer supported. They co-create their goals. They talk about it transparently with the organization so people can support. There’s a lot of support for continuing development to hit those goals. Those goals are challenging enough, but not so challenging that you can never actually achieve them, so you’re always building hope.

And it’s also that you have milestones, so you’re celebrating along the way, instead of it being like, “Oh, we sold a million-dollar, you know, whatever product,” or, “Landed a client,” and/or, “The project is finally done after three years and then we finally celebrate.” It’s about incrementally reminding people that they’re hitting milestones, which builds cognitive hope. So again, it’s just weekly and then incrementally, and then over time it really does change the atmosphere of innovation inside of these organizations that obviously are known for their innovative thinking.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, yeah, this is resonating. And it just sounds like we’ve had previous guests talk about the intrinsic motivators of play, like it is fun to solve problems. You feel like you’re actually getting to use your brain. And some people pay good money for the pleasure of solving problems with video games or whatever, they’re at kind of escape rooms, activities that they’re into.

So, could you tell us a story about a team that had a cool shift in terms of they were doing things the hopeless way, and they made some changes, they started doing some things hopefully, and cool results unfolded?

Jennifer Moss
Well, I go back to Atlassian, who’s a great example of distributed workforce, and they just do things really well. They were finding that people were not using the space, and they were dealing with a sense of loneliness, and they started to test, “How do we make it so that people feel excited and that they’re inspired by the organization?”

And they started their hackathons as one, where everyone comes to the table once a quarter, and they just play and do cool things, and everyone’s so excited about it, and that really has led to some incredible innovations, but, plus, it also created this other part of the hope strategy is that they were bringing people together. And there was another part of, again, that these satellite offices were, now they’re 91% occupied in an, interestingly, fully remote workforce.

They have all this in-person time, and they realized, “Okay. Well, at this point, we’re not necessarily giving people a sense of their product or their work being seen.” So, they started this togetherness focus and started to have people go and work in other offices, and really championed and supported people actually going and spending a week with a peer in another market. So, at any one time in New York, 50% of the office is occupied by people from around the entire organization.

And in these environments, they also are bringing CEOs and C-level executives to come into these spaces, so there’s an opportunity for everyone’s ideas to be seen, which makes you feel like, “I’m not just doing things in a vacuum. I actually am being evaluated and supported by some of the senior people around the organization.”

And so, they’ve done a really great job of pushing back on this idea that you can’t have remote workers be cohesive or have friendships or it’s just always loneliness for those people working remotely. They totally bucked that myth. And they do that by building up their workforce to still feel like when you’re together, it’s not about distraction, it’s about getting what they call “getting s**t done,” that’s their motto. And you go in the office to still get s**t done, but you are also focusing on building a sense of pride in the work that you do, and for others to see what you’re working on.

Pete Mockaitis
That is so cool and fun, and that just lights me up in terms of whenever there’s just a beautiful win-win in terms of people experience, as well as organizational functioning and profitability. And, like, building the remote offices, I’m sure like, from one frame of reference, I imagine there is a finance employee somewhere at the spreadsheet, saying, “No, no, no, no, this is not net present value positive for these funds into this purpose.” Because it can be hard to see a measure. Well, what is the value of people feeling like they’re seen, and like they belong, and like they have friends, and the engagement and reduced attrition that comes with it? It’s hard to quantify.

But I recall, and I just sort of thought Bain was really nice to us with regard to some of the investments they made. Like, you could just transfer to another office in the world for six months, and I was like, “Oh, that’s kind of cool of them. How generous.” And maybe there’s a part of that, but, really, it was a deliberate move to facilitate best practice sharing across the worldwide network.

Jennifer Moss
I love what you’re saying because I’ve been, for many years, an advocate of spending money on making sure that people get to see each other and investing in that travel spend. I mean, right now, we’re supposed to be saving money on our commercial real estate, hopefully, the people that have downsized. Why aren’t we moving people around so that we can get them to see each other?

Because one of the things in the book that I learned is that we have this real shift in the last five years where people used to see other people in their organization. They used to make friends with people because you talked about your kids’ baseball team, or you were friends because you like the same type of movies. And it would create these ad hoc kind of outside of work relationships so we move from these simplex relationships, which are just transactional to multiplex relationships, which include knowing about each other.

And since the pandemic, we are really much more focused on simplex relationships, it’s much more transactional, and a lot of that has to do with the fact that we’re only seeing our team. And I’ve heard this across the board in my interviews, “I just feel like I only know my team. I don’t know anyone else in the organization. We’re so siloed.” And that was already problematic, but there were ways that we fixed that by just creating opportunities to meet and connect.

And so, it doesn’t need to be five days in the office. Lots of data shows that’s actually counter to cohesion, but it is concentrated focus on getting real time with each other, that has more meaning and develops these multiplex relationships. And we’re not doing that very well, so we just blame it on it being remote work that’s created loneliness. But it’s actually so much more complex than that, but the solutions are much easier than people think. And it isn’t just like, “Yeah, that strategy of forcing everyone back through return to office mandates.”

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. Well, a couple follow-ups there. Five days in the office is counter to cohesion. What is optimal for cohesion?

Jennifer Moss
Well, Gallup says one to two days in the office per week and then you have others that say, I mean, hybrid is optimal if hybrid is done right. I mean, Mark Ma, from University of Pittsburgh, and Nick Bloom from Stanford, they’ve done lots of lots of research and found that, from a purely capitalist standpoint, the most financially viable is hybrid. People feel like that’s an okay meet in the middle.

And that five days a week, it ends up, actually, making people feel less connected, they’re more resentful to the organization and feeling less loyal, so they don’t invest in relationships in the same way. We also see organizations that have been focused on return to office mandates tend to also, as part of their kind of work personas, they’re overworking and there’s a lot of burn out there. And when you’re burned out, you also don’t really want to hang out after work or spend a lot of time chit-chatting. You feel like that 20 minutes of just having lunch every week could mean an extra hour in your pajamas at 11 o’clock at night so you avoid it.

And so, we’re seeing a lot of data that shows that that’s not great.

And fully remote is not great either in many ways. Some organizations, like Atlassian and others do it well, but from a purely capitalist standpoint, it is kind of that Goldilocks zone where there’s a little bit of both. But ones that are most successful are like the ones like Microsoft where it’s 50% of your time, not Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday. It’s sort of fluid, and managers get to say, “Hey, let’s talk about what makes sense.”

They have moments that matter, which is like, you know, an onboarding or a project that they really want to work on, or some specific reason why you’re in it together, but that can be fluid from week to week. And so, that kind of autonomy but a little bit of time together that’s used in a better way is where we see higher cohesion and happier workers.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. Well, we talked about hope a lot, but you actually mentioned eight areas for folks to address. Could you give us the quick one sentence, what do you mean by this area, and then maybe one quick tip for giving that a boost?

Jennifer Moss
So, purpose is the second chapter. I was able to talk with Adam Grant. He and I are really aligned on this idea of that leaders get this purpose wrong. It’s like part of the mission statement, your values and your purpose, and it’s always tied to this big grand mission statement. But no one really cares about that unless you’re in this executive group. There’s about 20% at the highest level that really feel connected to the purpose. Most people just want to tie their daily values to work.

So, one of the things that we recommend is that leaders of their teams have this one meeting every single week. And I know we’re meeting fatigued, but it’s 20 minutes, again 20 minutes to fix culture, and it’s a non-work-related check-in. You ask, “What lit you up this week? What stressed you out?” and everyone goes around and talks about that. And then, “What can we do to make next week easier?”

Because purpose really is about, “Does the thing I do every day, even the tedious and boring things that I do every day, do they matter? Does anyone care about it?” And if that’s connected to who you are and you feel good about it, you feel like you have purpose. And so, “What lights you up?” that’s like pure magic for managers to motivate. You know, “Okay, now I know you like this. Now that makes you excited. Oh, let’s try to create some of that thinking and fuel your work with that.”

And then, “What stresses you out?” that’s how you prevent burnout. That’s how you make sure that someone saying they haven’t slept every single time you ask them this question or they’re not sleeping, you can dig into it. Then you have managers as mental health conduits, not professionals, and they’re just able to get to it.

And then, “What can we do for each other to make next week easier?” builds that sense of shared goal-setting and helping each other and quick wins, which also builds cognitive hope. And it really, from the interventions where we’ve tried this, it’s really done incredible shifts in morale. And so, I think, like, that’s purpose and why I really feel like that’s a key critical thing that we should be working on.

Pete Mockaitis
And community?

Jennifer Moss
Community is just we’re all lonely. We need to have friends again. And the way that we’re seeking out friendships right now are based on accountability and conscientiousness. It’s a huge switch from pre-pandemic, where we were looking at shared interests, likeability, someone made you laugh, but now it’s like, “Can you get your job done because that’s all I care about?” And so, we need to bring rituals back.

We used to have what is called, I think, before it was called forced fun. And we don’t want forced fun, but we want rituals because that’s how you build social contagions, and people feel like going to work isn’t just like going to school without our gym or recess. It’s super boring right now. So, building friendships through rituals.

And then when we look at solving the big problems, compassion is how we, as leaders, address AI anxiety. We have to understand that there’s a lot of people, especially our younger cohort, one in two are feeling AI anxiety, which Gallup calls FOBO, fear of becoming obsolete. And so, compassion is how we do that because empathy is listening, compassion is taking that listening and putting it into action.

And then when it comes to really looking at openness, if we create openness, this is going to solve that generational divide that we have right now. A lot of mature workers say, “I don’t fit into this workforce. Like, this is not at all my philosophy, and I don’t really want to worry about obsolescence in my final years of work.” So, we’re seeing them, a lot of mature workers leave early, and I think that’s actually going to be a major labor force catastrophe if we’re not careful with that group.

And young people are just opting out. So, we need to stop this hyperbolic, “Boomers can’t Google, and they’re micromanaging,” or, “Gen Z’s are lazy and entitled, and they’d afford a home if they just stop buying avocado toast.” That, to me, is just like, people think it’s funny, and, actually, it’s creating a real sense of ageism at work.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, yeah, so you’re saying, in both directions.

Jennifer Moss
In both directions.

Pete Mockaitis
So, the Millennials think that the Boomer is an idiot who can’t Google, and the Boomer thinks that the youngsters are irresponsibly burning their cash. Whereas, like, there are realities associated with, like, affordability is harder now. And then on the other side, it’s like, “Hey, technology is changing much more rapidly now.” Like, that’s also true, and that is also hard, and it needs to be acknowledged.

Jennifer Moss
It is. And you know what? I keep saying, like, stop using terms like “reverse mentoring.” We use that all the time. And it assumes that an older worker knows less about technology or something than a younger one, and we talk about Boomers know this and Gen Z knows this. We see this always when we talk about technology, and it’s just assumed that one generation knows something more than the other, which is not accurate.

Like, look at Dr. Hinton, he was the founder of AI, probably knows a lot about AI, and he’s in his late 60s. And so, this idea that we have to learn in this reverse way, instead of peer mentorship is a way better approach to talking about it. And, really, in the book, I just go through all the language that we don’t realize we’re using, the narratives that we use a lot, and that it just creates this continued labeling of an entire generation as being a very specific thing. And instead of just taking those assumptions away and looking at it, I think, with an openness, that’s what leaders need to do.

And then I think my favorite chapter was freedom because this whole idea of the reason why workers don’t want to have these RTO mandates, or don’t want to go back to work is that we’re missing the psychological barriers that people are feeling right now, which is, “I had my freedom in this certain area of work,” and it goes across the board, not just with return to office, but across the board.

There was more investment in well-being, DEI, you know, all of these commitments, and promises that were made to people. And when they started getting those clawed back, it felt like, “Wow, now my freedom, my sense of freedom is being taken away.” I talk about this from a neuroscience standpoint, and our sense of freedom is deeply baked in our neural wiring. It’s something we would go to great peril to stand up for, and a lot of this resistance is subconscious.

It’s conscious and subconscious because we’re fighting for something that we feel like is ours now. And so, that trust is a big factor, and so organizations that are making these choices really quickly and just sort of throwing it at employees is why I believe that this whole issue has continued to be so polarizing. Instead of understanding that people shot up when it comes to the rates of social anxiety from 4% to 36% of people explain that they had social anxiety through the pandemic.

So, you’re not just saying, “People, go back to work. Deal with it,” and if they’re resistant, it’s because they’re lazy. It’s because they have generalized and high levels of social anxiety. So, I think this, for me, was a big aha, recognizing why the pushback and why the resistance is so, so difficult for leaders and employees to get on the same page.

Pete Mockaitis
And I’m curious, could you share, if folks are in the individual contributor role of things, and they’re vibing with what you’re saying, like, “Yes, Jen, this sounds right and true and good, and I wish my organization would do some of this enlightened stuff,” what do you recommend they do?

Jennifer Moss
Well, as an individual contributor, your life is still—you’re still in charge of it, and although happiness at work, it really needs to have societal and policy change. You need to have leadership and high-level executive managers and individuals all play a role to make it the kind of culture that everyone wants. We have a lot of responsibility too of our own choices. It’s a privilege to just quit so I don’t just say, “Oh, everyone can quit.”

Not everyone can quit. It’s not that easy to do. But I do say that there are a lot of things that have happened, habits that have been imposed on us and self-inflicted habits. Like, I just wrote this article for HBR that was really, I think, well-received and it was titled “Let’s End Toxic Productivity.” And we’ve become toxically productive. We’re waking up in the morning and checking, we’re sitting in our pajamas, we’re calling it fun work. We have our glass of wine while we’re doing admin, and it’s like, “Oh, this is fun work because I’m drinking and I’m doing my admin work.”

Pete Mockaitis
That’s one way to do it.

Jennifer Moss
Yeah. It’s like, “No, this is still not healthy.” And you see this increase specifically in women that are just completely burning out, and they’re hitting that wall. So, we do feel a sense of pressure that, again, it’s like institutional stress, but it’s also us feeling like we need to perform at these high levels. And a lot of that is because we’re still in this sense of urgency mode. We’re still in surge capacity mode, and we haven’t stopped that, reset that habit and replace those with more boundaries.

We can’t always make those choices because there’s a lot of reasons for it, but in the book, the first chapter was me interviewing Kara, who was on track to be the first female black partner in her law firm, and she lost three members of her family. And when I met her, she was driving an Uber, and I said, “Wow, that’s intense. And what made you choose to do that?” And she said, “Life is short. I’m working on my nonprofit in Costa Rica, giving microloans to women, and, yeah, I’m making less money, but I just feel like I needed to do this. Like, I’m compelled to do this.”

And you’re seeing more women, why we have the thinnest executive pipeline in history right now. And for the first time in a decade, we see the global CEOs of females decline, and a lot of it is just a purpose shifting, and we’re going to lose a lot of talent because people are just, overwhelmed. But we do have the choice, and I have had so many interviews.

I interviewed over a hundred Uber drivers for the book, and every single one of them said, “I feel better.” And it’s shocking because we would think, “Really?” Our perception is, “No way. You had this opportunity to be the first black female partner, like, how could you be happier?” And she said, “I am. It’s extraordinary how much healthier I am and happier I am in this role.”

And I think, when you face your mortality, you realize that. And a lot of us have collectively faced our mortality over the last five years or have a sense of it potentially being uncertain, and that changes you. And this is what we need to look at, it’s like, “What are our deathbed regrets?” And if that doesn’t fit into the schematic of, “Okay, is answering an email at 11 o’clock at night drunk, is that going to be our deathbed regret? Probably. Or, is missing time with my family, or is being healthy, or is actually setting boundaries?” And that is where I see a lot more people making those choices for their own happiness and healthiness.

Pete Mockaitis
Let’s zoom on this, you interviewed a hundred Uber drivers, and all of them said they were happier driving Uber than doing another job.

Jennifer Moss
Well, I would say maybe 80 to 85 percent of them did, 15% were just like, “I’ve been always driving this car and it’s good for me because I…” That 15% and I found were really proud of making a paycheck to be able to put their kids through school or giving them a better life, and so there was still a sense of pride. They hadn’t left another job, but the majority of them had.

And there was three people I interviewed that had left Wall Street. They were making lots of money and, fortunately, they had some money to be able to support that. I saw a lot of retirees that took early retirement but didn’t want to return to corporate, so they were driving an Uber just to continue making money, but they had no desire to actually go back. And a lot of them had very solid positions within their company. They made good money, but they didn’t want to be in that environment.

This is where they would say things like, “I just don’t fit. Like, this is good for me, this pace.” And I also found, too, what was a really interesting data point is that 20% of American grandparents are primary caregivers. And so, we never think of that, and now we’re seeing more organizations have grandternity benefits, which I think are fantastic.

But we think only older Gen Z’s and Millennials need that help with the kind of paternity and maternity leave, but grandparents are taking on primary care, so flexibility has become extremely important for them. And so, so organizations that didn’t offer that, that was leading them to go into places where there was flexibility. And I would say across the board, that was one of the main factors, was just “The flexibility to be able to do what I needed to do as a parent, as a grandparent, or even just for my own passion pursuits.”

Pete Mockaitis
Well, I mean, I think that is so stark in terms of many workplaces are failing their workers so profoundly, in terms of flexibility, purpose, belonging, that folks would prefer to receive a fourth or less the compensation in order to just drive a car and not have to deal with all that crap.

Jennifer Moss
Yes. And, really, again, it’s the focal point of the book because people described what they were missing, and the data shows that the big Gallup whirlpool that goes into the happiness report found that people would take 37% less pay if it meant higher work-life balance and flexibility. I mean, we can solve these problems and yet now we’re seeing more people double and triple down on less flexibility, which just erodes that trust, and I think the data is there.

There’s so much evidence to show that if you provide autonomy and trust in your workers that you hired, that you spent a lot of money to recruit and retain, they’re adults, you hired adults, so why are you treating them like children when you bring them into the organization? And so, to me, the freedom chapter of flexibility, specifically, it’s like, it’s just such a no-brainer, and organizations are just making this real play to have control, and it’s turning people off.

And they are willing, at this point, to take much less pay to have a life that feels like that there’s a sense of freedom in it. And that’s why you’re seeing this high level of disengagement, this constant turnover. People, even if you’re in the organization, are just not feeling like they care about work. Quiet quitting, and disengagement is so high, that you’re not even getting the most out of your people. You’re actually getting a fraction of what you could be getting from your people if you just let go of the power and looked at this as a mutual respect of transferring skills and just working together.

Pete Mockaitis
Thank you. Well, Jen, tell me, anything else you want to mention before we hear about your favorite things?

Jennifer Moss
I just really hope that people just start caring more about each other, and putting five percent more of their effort into just being kind and altruistic. And, you know, it really is 20 minutes, 20 minutes of eating lunch with each other, Cornell found, actually improves well-being and happiness at work. It’s just one lunch every single week together.

If I can tell people to just take 20 minutes of thinking of some sort of tactical strategy that you could do to make someone in your organization’s life better, you will feel better for it. And if we could create a bit of a social network or contagion around that, I think it would spill over into something really, really transformational.

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

Jennifer Moss
“You can have anything, not everything.”

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

Jennifer Moss
I love Dr. William’s study that he did for the Oxford Wellbeing Institute this year, and he said, basically, well-being programs aren’t working, wellness is not working, but the one thing that does work is volunteering and altruism. So, just being nice to other people is the one well-being program that we should be focusing on this year.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. And a favorite book?

Jennifer Moss
I love A Little Life. It’s so painful but it is the most beautiful book I’ve ever read.

Pete Mockaitis
And a favorite tool?

Jennifer Moss
One of my favorite tools right now is ResearchGate. Being able to have the ability to go through there and be able to use it for really incredible research that you can, as a journalist and as an author, be using so that we aren’t spreading misinformation, so that we really are getting it from peer-reviewed sources.

That makes me feel so much better about the content I’m putting out, and that people are reading something that I know has been backed through evidence. And I think every single writer and journalist, and anyone communicating to the public, should be using that source instead of some of the AI sources that might be not as accurate.

Pete Mockaitis
And a favorite habit?

Jennifer Moss
I do practice gratitude. And I know that sounds hokey but it’s something that I really try to do. We do it around the dinner table but, lately, just for me, it’s like, “What went well this week? What can I work with that I have versus what I don’t have?” and it does work. It gets me out of my habit.

And just taking a moment to take a breath, and realize that there’s still a lot of good things in the world that I appreciate. It does ground me in this time of poly-crisis.

Pete Mockaitis
And, if I may, when it comes to practicing gratitude, I think that there’s some nuance in doing this excellently, because sometimes I can list a thing that is objectively a blessing or, “This is a good thing, and I am noting it, I am listing it, I am acknowledging it.” But sometimes when I’m doing gratitude, I actually feel gratitude for the thing that is objectively good, and other times, I don’t have the feelings. And since you’re a good researcher, can you tell me, does that matter in terms of doing a gratitude practice? Or how should I do it optimally?

Jennifer Moss
Dr. Robert Emmons in his book Thanks, and a lot of his research, are so useful on this concept of gratitude and how it impacts. And sometimes it is tail that wags the dog, you know, like that idea that you think about these things, it is a narrative that your brain is using. So, anytime that you refocus on something that maybe you’re not feeling, but you know is valuable, like, “Oh, be thankful for having clean water.” And at the moment, I’m just not like, “Oh, I’m so grateful for clean water,” but I’ll mention it.

And it does help you have perspective-taking because from a neuroscience standpoint, it does take out the things that you could be focusing on that are not positive. You have only so much you can attend to at any one time. It’s like 40 things that you can attend to in the moment while you’re processing tens of billions of pieces of information. But if you’re attending to something, even if you don’t feel those, you know, necessarily those chemical reactions to it, it is creating a desire path in the brain.

So, the more that you put that focus, that neural wiring, and you go over it and over and over again, you create what is called gratitude fluency. So, you go from practicing gratitude to being grateful, and that happens over time. It’s like a language that you learn and you become fluent in gratitude, and so then it’s an automatic response to feel gratitude towards something versus having to practice it. But it is something, as it works through your life, it does change the chemistry as well. It just takes time.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay, that is helpful. And if nothing else, the fact that I have oriented my thoughts towards a thing worthy of gratitude means that I wasn’t like whining about “This water doesn’t taste very good. And a key nugget, something that you share that seems to connect and resonate with folks?

Jennifer Moss
One of the things I would say is that we have more agency sometimes than we think if we’re really stressed and burned out. And one of the best things that we can do is really do a values assessment. What do you care about? What do you love? And then make your priorities for the year. Focus on that.

And if you’re saying yes to something, like a project that maybe you’re excited to participate in but it’s going to take that extra 20% of your time, put it on that scale of “Is this FOMO? Is this something I have to do? Or, is this another thing where I’m going to regret saying yes in the future?” And take some time to rest.

Rest is not a four-letter word. Look at what you can be doing with that time for work, and instead refocus it on making sure that you’re well and healthy and prioritize your own well-being and the well-being of the people around you first. And then, hopefully, you’ll start to see the benefits of that.

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

Jennifer Moss
Jennifer-Moss.com.

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

Jennifer Moss
I would love for all of you to spend the next month and every day say something nice about another person behind their back. Spreading positive gossip inside of an organization actually improves psychological safety for those people coming into the space. And when it gets around to someone that you said some awesome thing about them, it really does make them feel incredibly special. So, just for the next month, just talk nicely about all your co-workers and see how that spreads a positivity contagion.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. Jen, thank you. This is fun.

Jennifer Moss
Thank you so much, Pete. It was great. Too many years in between, but maybe it’ll be less next time.

Apr 03
0

1046: Boosting Your Drive to Enjoy Sustainable Success with Molly Fletcher

By | Podcasts | No Comments

Molly Fletcher reveals the key to building a career that’s sustainable and fulfilling.

You’ll Learn

  1. How to stop the negative self-talk and shift your mindset
  2. Why burnout happens–and how to avoid it
  3. Practical steps to build lasting resilience

About Molly

Hailed as the “female Jerry Maguire” by CNN, Molly Fletcher made a name for herself as one of the first female sports agents. During her almost two-decade career, Molly negotiated over $500 million in contracts and represented over 300 of sports’ biggest names.

Now as a World’s Top 50 Keynote Speaker, she delivers her inspiring message to audiences around the world. She is the author of multiple books, and her latest book, Dynamic Drive, became an instant USA Today #1 Non-Fiction Bestseller.

Resources Mentioned

Thank You, Sponsors!

Molly Fletcher Interview Transcript

Pete Mockaitis
Molly, welcome back!

Molly Fletcher
It’s awesome to be back with you, Pete.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, so we’re talking about your book, Dynamic Drive, which sounds like something I’d sure love to have more of. Could you kick us off with maybe a super inspiring story of someone who was struggling but then made the switch and saw that sustainable success on the other side?

Molly Fletcher
Yeah, Pete, that’s awesome. Well, I think, fundamentally, I’d frame it with the fact that, as an agent for you know, almost 20 years as a sports agent, what’s so fascinating is that the fans see, with sports, all these moments of achievement. Like the fans see the trophies and the accolades and the big contracts, and these pivotal peak moments of achievement.

But, for me, what I saw every day, all day, day in and day out, for, literally, decades is everything in between the moment of achievement, everything that got them there, who they became in that pursuit, and what happened after the achievement, and who did it again and again, and why, and how. And so, they operated differently, and that is in part what Dynamic Drive is, is this pursuit of better every single day, and I unpack seven principles that are critical to living that way, and, in many ways, parking complacency to the side forever.

And so, it’s this focus not on a moment in time or on achievement, which is really the traditional definition of drive, this linear pursuit of an outcome, and dynamic drive is this continuous pursuit of better in a way that’s sustainable and anchored in purpose.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, yeah, that sounds like it could fire me up, sure.

Molly Fletcher
Are you fired up?

Pete Mockaitis
So, can we hear about someone who kind of lost the path, but then got back in the groove?

Molly Fletcher
Well, absolutely, I mean, I think that is, in part, my mission, is to help people recognize when they could be sliding into complacency and don’t really recognize it. You know, I talk about that there’s a big difference between contentment, which is totally a great thing to have your toes in the sand with a book in your hand on a beach and be content, and there’s a totally different thing when we think about complacency, which, to me, is this unintentional parking of something in your life that potentially actually matters to you a lot.

And so, I tell a story, actually, in the book about a gentleman that I really walked through something that I think is probably really helpful for your listeners, which is an alignment audit, which is an opportunity to pull back and say, “What are the things in my life that really, really matter to me? What are my most important people, things, behaviors, beliefs that matter to me deeply, you know, physically, mentally, emotionally, relationally, spiritually?”

Write all those down, and then rate yourself on a scale of one to ten on the amount of time, attention, and energy you’re giving those things that you’ve identified matter to you a ton. And so, I unpack a story in the book, to your question, of a gentleman by the name of Dave. And what he realized in doing that was, “Gosh, I got a gap. I mean, I say that my son is A1 and just such an important part of my life but I miss every one of his games and I go hunting every weekend.” And I say that it matters but he rated himself a five, and so that was a gap.

And I think we can all recognize the roles that we play in our life – wife, mother, sister, daughter, neighbor, parishioner, community member, leader. There’s a myriad of roles we play in our life, and I think we’ve got to recognize, “How do I show up as the best version of myself in those roles and be remarkably intentional about living into that in service of really leading the life and leaving the legacy that we want to leave in alignment with the things that really matter to us?”

And there are so many moments in my own life where I was pursuing this thing that I was told, candidly, as a wife and a mother when we had three kids in 12 months, Pete, which is sort of hard, it’s a little crazy, right? I mean, we had one and then we had twins. And everybody was like, “Molly, you can balance all this.” So, the peak of my career, 300 athletes, and coaches, team of agents, like you can balance all this.

And so, that was what I was trying to do, was I was trying to balance all of these things, which was a lot of things. And then I was finding myself completely exhausted and drained and feeling like a total failure and just fried. And, fundamentally, what was happening was I was attempting to take all of these various things and go to bed at night with a teeter-totter perfectly balanced, and I actually don’t even think that’s what we want.

I think what we want is alignment, which means that sometimes we will be out of balance, but it’s on purpose, right? Like, when I wrote my book, I was a little over-indexed from a work perspective. I’d take about a month plus in the summer and go to our cottage in northern Michigan where I’m out of balance with work, but I’m totally in balance, you know, I’m aligned with something that’s deeply valuable to me and my family.

So, I think it’s just critical to say, “What are the things that matter most? How can I live into that?” which isn’t balance, it’s alignment. And I had a guy that I interviewed actually on my podcast, Pete, and he said that when he, and this would be an example, he said that when he was going to play in his very first Super Bowl ever, and this guy was like selling shoes at Foot Locker a year before, so this was just incredible for him.

He, essentially, told his family, like, “Hey, I am fully locked in for the next two weeks, training for the Super Bowl. Like, my phone is going to be, I’m going to be locked in.” So, he was out of balance, but he was aligned with a really remarkably unique window of time and had communicated that to the people in his life who really matter, and then was able to have a really special experience.

So, he was getting ready to have a really incredibly unique and super special experience in the Super Bowl, so he was a little out of balance with his family, but he had communicated that in service of ensuring he could perform at his best in a moment, professionally, that really mattered to him.

Pete Mockaitis
That’s good. And I think we had a guest, Dan Thurmon, who wrote a book called Off Balance On Purpose, and he’s, like, a yearly cyclist and gymnast.

Molly Fletcher
Cool.

Pete Mockaitis
And I think that’s a good visual, it’s like, yeah, there will be times in which you choose to be off balance, but in so doing, you get some momentum and a direction, and so you kind of handle your stuff appropriately elsewhere with the communication and the heads-up and all that kind of thing. Well, then tell us, when it comes to having a dynamic drive, what’s the big idea or core message that makes it all possible?

Molly Fletcher
Absolutely. Well, purpose is fundamental to dynamic drive in the sense that it’s the red thread that threads through it all. In other words, I think when we know why we do what we do, it changes what we do and it changes the way that we show up in moments that can be hard. And we know that when we’re pursuing a better version of ourself, we can unlock greater joy and greater fulfillment. We can align with the legacy that we want to leave.

And so, purpose is so critical because, you know, I think about athletes and coaches that I worked with, who had injuries and rehabs and trades, but if they were clear on why they were doing what they were doing, it gave them the strength to overcome, at some level, the speed bumps and the hiccups and the challenges, and we’re all going to have them.

But when we know why, and I often tell an analogy, sort of a metaphor of sorts where it’s like you have two high-rise buildings and you say to an individual, “Hey, look, I’m going to ask you to walk across the high-rise building, I mean, on a plank, across these two high-rise buildings. I’ll lay the plank over the top. It’s an inch and a half thick; it’s a foot and a half wide. It’s kind of a sunny day. Eighty percent of the people that walk across this plank to the other side make it. It’s a thousand feet high, five hundred feet apart, let’s say, 80% make it, 20% don’t.”

And I’ll ask a room of 1,000 people in a keynote, “Would you walk across that plank for a million bucks?” And I get five hands. “How about would you walk across for 5 million bucks?” and I get a couple more hands. And then I ask, “If the most important people in your life, the most important people in your life are on the other side, and the only way you could save them is if you walked across the plank?” Everybody’s hand shoots up before I can finish the sentence.

In other words, when we know why we’re doing something, it fundamentally changes our ability to show up in that moment with the kind of mindset that we need to execute. And so, I unpack seven keys, mindset, of course, being one of them, to living this way. But I’m watching you and you have a question, you’re contemplating something. I want to give you a shot here, Sparky. What do you got? Talk to me, Pete.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, one, I mean, you’ve crafted quite the visual, that I am imagining, and it is sort of terrifying, you know, thinking about the heights and whatnot. I think it reminds me of skydiving and more here. And so, yeah, it really does, emotionally, experientially, in the gut, crystallize a concept that can be very theoretical.

It crystallized a concept that can be a very theoretical and rational, it’s like, “Oh, yes, my family is important to me. Like, yes, I should have purpose, yes. Yes.” And yet, when you put it that way very sharply, it becomes quite clear, “Millions of dollars would be pretty cool but not worth risking my life for,” versus, “My family, no question.”

So, it’s kind of like, if you’re willing to risk your life for something, and yet not something else, then it’s not too far of a stretch to say, “Well, then how will you spend your life? How will you choose to invest your finite hours before you expire in that which is truly meaningful?”

And it’s quite easy to get sucked into all kinds of things that you’re like, “Well, wait a second, this is cool and helpful, but it’s not my purpose. This is fun and interesting, and I’d like to be helpful to other people. I don’t want to let them down. I want to make good use of my degree in certain reasons, rationales, excuses, any of them,” but it’s a much higher bar and far fewer things are worth risking our life for and, thus, spending our life in pursuit of.

Molly Fletcher
Absolutely. And I think that fundamental question, that is so important to consider, kind of to your point, is, “What are you chasing?” I had a friend who, I mean, she’s got a promotion and raises and all these things, but she was looking at me, saying, “I’m exhausted. I’m traveling constantly. I’m disconnected from my husband, and my daughter and I are sideways. I’m not sleeping. I’m gaining weight. I’m not exercising,” and she was just in a really tough place.

And I remember looking at her, and she had a huge job, and she had gotten this promotion, and I said, “What are you chasing?” And she looked at me, and was like, “What kind of a question is that? What do you mean?” Well, I’m like, “Well, like, it doesn’t sound like you’re having, fundamentally, like, just fun and it sounds like you’re compromising some things that matter. And so, like, I’m just trying to, I mean, what is it?”

And I’m, like, waiting for her to go, “Well, I’m going to do this for six months so that I can do X.” She goes, “What do you mean?” I said, “Well, what is it all for? I mean, your daughter is 16. What is it all for? What are you chasing?” And she didn’t have an answer. And so, I think it is a very difficult question to answer, but it’s a really important one to answer because we want to know that.

Otherwise, I think sometimes we just find ourselves on a treadmill on 10, holding on for dear life, with an incline of 10, and we’re not really sure where we’re going and why we’re going there. And so, I think we just have to take the time and the energy to get aligned in that regard so that we’re connected to the things that do matter to us.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, help us out, if some listeners are having a similar stuck response, “Uh, I don’t know, Molly,” what’s the path or the sequence by which we get some clarity and insight there?

Molly Fletcher
Well, I mean, the alignment audit, I think, is really powerful that we sort of just unpacked, which I think is a really cool way to get aligned with what matters, how much time and attention are you giving to the things that matter. So, that’s really critical and foundational relative to the opportunity to live with balance or alignment, not balance, in fact.

But then I unpack seven principles in Dynamic Drive, and one is mindset, right? So, oftentimes, we have what I call an inner critic that we want to turn into an inner coach. So, we think about in our lives the way that maybe an inner critic might talk to us, which is, “You can’t,” “Why me?” “I’m not good enough,” “I’m not this enough,” and we have these automatic thoughts to the tune of almost 80,000 a day, and some of them are that inner critic.

And so, what we want to do is, first, recognize the things, the scripts, the self-talk that are not taking us where we want to go, that are keeping us a little bit stuck, and then we want to shift that to truly a bit of an inner coach that’s going to take us where we want to go. So, I’ll give you an example.

Let’s say you say that exercise is important to you but the self-talk is, you know, “I just don’t have time. I mean, how in the world am I supposed to take time to exercise or work out when, I mean, I’ve got this job and I’ve got emails, and I’m married, I have kids, and I’ve got dinner, and I got all these things? And, like, I don’t have time. I don’t have time to work out.”

And, fundamentally, pulling back and saying, “Okay, well, what if I shifted that story to, when I take time to work out, I feel better, I sleep better, I make better food choices, I show up better for the people in my life who matter most? I need to take the time every day to ensure that I protect that time and I exercise because I show up better for the people in my life that matter.”

And then, when the inner critic comes in and that self-talk or that thing that might keep us stuck in this place, we shift to that better script. And I also encourage people to reinforce that new script. Maybe it’s something you write on your whiteboard in your office. Maybe it’s a sticky note on your desk. But we want to keep that new script in front of us so that, when we do slip, and that inner critic starts to find its way in, we can suffocate it with that new script.

So, mindset is a really, really critical place to start. And then, I talk about energy and discipline and curiosity, resilience, connection, you know, confidence, obviously, is critical, but this is a way of life that isn’t linear, in the sense that we might find ourselves in certain moments where we need a little bit more discipline, or we need a little bit more curiosity, or we’ve pushed hard and we need resiliency.

And so, it isn’t like A to B, B to C, C to D, right, and then, “Whoop, we’re there.” It’s the ability to circle back in and touch the things that we need in the moments that matter.

Pete Mockaitis
Yeah, that’s lovely in terms of the reframe, what it’s for, makes all the difference as opposed to simply, “Well, I should. Well, you know, the government recommends I should have 150 minutes of moderate to vigorous aerobic activity each week.” It’s like, “Okay, that’s not much of a pull.” It’s like, “I should do it.” Or, now that I’m 41 years old and married with children, trying to have a hot bod is not really a motivator the way it was as a youth.

Molly Fletcher
That’s right.

Pete Mockaitis
You know, in the dating market with competitors that I had to pass it in the pursuit of the lady. So, yeah, that makes the world of difference, is getting clear on the underlying purpose or benefit, which serves as an antidote, a counter-response to the inner critic and head trash going on.

Molly Fletcher
And I think, oftentimes, people talk about burnout so much today. I actually think burnout is really a result of doing too much of the things that don’t align with what matters most to you, that don’t align with your purpose. I don’t think burnout is a result of working too much. I think it’s working on the things that don’t matter to you.

And so, I also think we can keep burnout at bay because we’re pursuing something that is deeply critical to what matters to us relative to who and how we want to be and do whatever it is that we do in our life.

Pete Mockaitis
Yes. So, I’m curious then, if we find ourselves in a spot where, let’s just say with jobs, like, “Hmm, that’s ringing a bell, Molly. I am feeling a touch of burnout, and it’s because I don’t actually, deep down, care much about what I’m doing. It’s a job. It pays bills. That’s handy. It would be cool to do some other things, but I don’t know,” how do we start to work with that?

Molly Fletcher
Yeah, for sure. Well, I think we also have to recognize that, not everybody’s work is going to also be their purpose. Is it ideal and optimal? Absolutely. But the purpose might be that we have to shift our mindset to one that then allows us to make the life for our children a little bit better than ours was, or gives us an opportunity to do X or Y.

So, we want to take the time to, certainly, if we can do the work that we believe is our life’s mission, that is absolutely ideal, no question about it. And I think what I would push somebody that’s in that place to recognize is maybe there’s an opportunity to understand, beyond the paycheck and beyond the check clearing and beyond the money, what, in fact, is underneath all that, that is making an impact in a way that’s deep and real and substantive?

I spoke at an event for a payments company, a financial payments company, and it was interesting. The leader really pushed, you know, you would say, “Well, I didn’t wake up in all my life where I was dying to run payroll for people.” And she really pushed people to understand that, “Look, we execute against the payroll of, I mean, just enormous amounts of individuals in the world. And that then, in turn, creates meals and family dinners and people sitting around a table.”

And so, look, is that a stretch? Maybe, but maybe that’s a way to reframe it in service of saying, “You know what, this isn’t really about payroll. This is about something bigger and deeper than that.” And then I think we have to have the courage to recognize that maybe, that our legacy, the thing we want on our tombstone, isn’t directly aligned with what we do day in and day out, but it feeds the thing that is, in fact, maybe be more deeply threaded relative to our purpose.

I would encourage people to recognize the power of saying, you know, I think, oftentimes, people will say, or will hear, “I don’t have a choice. I don’t have a choice.” I think that we actually have more choices than sometimes we really want to face. And I think we have to have the courage to really go, “Do I not, really? Like, maybe there is something that I could change. Maybe there is something that could pivot, that would allow me to align my purpose more directly to the work that I’m doing and in service of me feeling like I’m living into that more deeply.”

And I think taking the time to explore the fact that we have a fair amount of control on where we put our energy, more so than, I think, sometimes we can admit to, and it’s hard. It doesn’t mean it’s easy, but, I mean, we have to, at some level, have the courage to ask ourselves some difficult questions that could help us create that alignment.

And I think we also have to have people around us that have no agenda, but to help us be the best version of ourselves, that can help us unpack maybe where there’s gaps and opportunities for us to step into our purpose.

Pete Mockaitis
Yeah, that’s cool. And I’m curious, then, you’ve got seven keys to unlock our dynamic drive: mindset, energy, discipline, curiosity, resilience, connection, confidence. That’s a lot for an interview. But we talk about mindset here, it boils down to a set of beliefs, kind of shaping how we see the world and ourself in it. Are there any just phenomenal core beliefs that just make a world of difference in terms of having that drive?

Molly Fletcher
I think, fundamentally, it’s recognizing that talent alone and our sort of isn’t enough to sustain high performance, to even potentially get to the best version of ourselves. Like, to me, talent is a fantastic thing, and we all have God-given talents. But, for me, I can tell you as an agent, there was a lot of athletes and coaches that had a lot of talent, but they didn’t get there or stay there, because talent isn’t enough. So, we need talent plus curiosity, plus discipline, plus mindset, plus energy.

Molly Fletcher
I think that they, fundamentally, recognize that it isn’t about a finite moment in time, that it’s an inside-out pursuit of better, not an outside-in pursuit. In other words, it’s not about pursuing an outcome, it’s about who we’re becoming from the inside out. And it’s not over indexing on a focus on an outcome or a moment in time, but rather on who we’re becoming in that pursuit of that outcome, of better.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. So then, I’m curious then, does that translate into some mantras, some convictions or affirmations or things that we return to if we’re feeling some drift away from these bedrock beliefs?

Molly Fletcher
Absolutely. I mean, I think when we think about that, I appreciate that question, I mean, one is it’s where obstacles, where some people might see an obstacle, if you’re living into dynamic drive, you see opportunity. You see what’s possible. I tell a story in the book about a baseball player I represented who went from a starter in the big leagues to a closer, then back to a starter, All-star Hall of Famer.

Now, in that moment, when the world thought he’s insane, “What is he doing? He’s too old. He can’t do this,” and everybody thought it was a gigantic obstacle, he saw it as an opportunity, so it was a shift. So, we’re walking into a meeting, we’re walking into a conversation, we’re stepping into some change, we’re stepping into a challenge that most people, and, traditionally, we might think is a complete and total obstacle, but when we recognize and shift the story that we tell ourselves to being an opportunity, I think it’s pulling back and saying, “You know what? I’m going to choose where my energy goes before everyone else in the world decides for me.”

And I think that’s so fundamentally important to recognize, is that if we don’t choose where our energy goes, other people will. I think another mantra, to your question, would be that most people overestimate talent and they underestimate discipline. I think about the key curiosity. Curiosity creates chances is often a mantra that I say. Curiosity can create choices, for sure, in our lives if we’re curious.

And I think when we think about resilience, what feels important to recognize is that resilience is about fundamentally recognizing the difference between being good and being terrific, being outstanding at whatever it might be in our lives, personally or professionally. It’s about recovering fast. I think about tough days we have, tough conversations, tough moments, tough meetings, tough phone calls. We have them. We’re all going to have them, and particularly if we choose to live into dynamic drive. We’re going to have hiccups.

What’s critical is that we recover very quickly, and part of that is going to that mindset key and shifting from what potentially is an obstacle into an opportunity. And, for me, through the lens of sports, I saw so many athletes miss shots they should make, putts they should make, spray, you know, their drive off into the rough, but what they do is they don’t let it unravel. They tell themselves the right script for them, and then they reset. So, obstacles being opportunities.

I think the other one, when we think about connection, Pete, that I think is important, that I share a story about a contract I negotiated for a coach who then changed his mind the next morning after signing six contracts and a record-setting contract. And the mistake was being too transactional that I made.

And so, I think when we think about connection, it’s keeping relational at the center, not transactional. I often say we want to be relational, not transactional. And in all the keynotes that I give, whenever I have a conversation with the leaders or the stakeholders before a keynote, I’ll often ask, “Are relationships important to the work that they do?” And, I mean, literally, I’ve done a thousand keynotes, and nobody says, “No, relationships don’t. This is not really that big of a deal for us.” Everybody’s like, “Oh, totally. I mean, relationships are everything.” So, being relational, not transactional.

I think the other one is that confidence, you know, when we think about the key and the principle of confidence. Confidence doesn’t come from being comfortable. Confidence comes from taking action inside of maybe a little bit of discomfort. That’s how we actually strengthen our confidence. In other words, we can’t sit in a corner and think our way to being and showing up in the world more confidently. We have to take action to do that.

Confidence comes from stepping out of your comfort zone into what I often call the stretch zone. So, those are a couple little mantras that I think are important to lean into.

Pete Mockaitis
Thank you. Well, thinking about resilience, tell us, you’ve got a cool vantage point, having seen a lot of athletes with a lot of resilience, how do we get there, to have that mental toughness to really keep on stepping up? They say that which doesn’t kill you makes you stronger. And, it’s funny. I found that sometimes that’s true and sometimes it’s not. It’s like, “No, I feel like I was maimed by that. I feel wounded and harmed by that encounter as opposed to strengthened.” So. what makes the difference and how could we indeed get back up stronger?

Molly Fletcher
I would argue that it’s not even about getting back up, back to the watermark of where we potentially were, but actually better because of maybe that hiccup, that moment in which we needed to wipe off our knees. I think what’s important is, number one, as leaders, potentially who are listening, or parents, we often want to catch people before they fall and sort of save them from that.

But we need these moments where everything doesn’t always work out perfectly and we “fail,” but that builds our resilience muscle and gives us the confidence to keep pushing and stepping back into moments that are a little bit of a stretch. And I think we live in a world, particularly as a parent, where we sort of kind of shield our children from the falling and the skinning of the knees, and I think that they need to do that. And, obviously, I mean, if they’re running out in front, you know, there’s obvious moments when we want to stop somebody from something.

But there’s also moments where, “You know what, let’s let that hiccup happen, and let me be right there as a parent beside him to help him navigate out of it.” Or, as a leader, putting, you know, allowing somebody to have a little bit of a hiccup, potentially, in service of helping them strengthen and recover from that moment and show back up better.

I think we have to be intricately aware of the importance of everything not going swimmingly every minute of the day, and allowing ourselves to recognize the power and the confidence that’s created, the strength that’s created when we have to recover. Think about working out, right? It fundamentally is taxing the muscles when we go lift, but that is in service of them building up again and building and coming back stronger.

So, there are so many opportunities in our lives when we can step into that moment, ask that question in the meeting, like, push. You know, people often ask me, because I’ve negotiated so much, like, “How do I get better?” Reps. Like, work the barista at the Starbucks for, like, an extra shot of espresso for fun. Like, I negotiated a buy-two-get-one free kind of orthodontics thing for our daughters when they were getting braces when they were young.

That’s a safe environment to practice asking for what you want, and it might not work and that’s okay. But I think we strengthen that resilience muscle by stepping into the stretch zone. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t. We want to try to do it in as many safe moments as we can, but we want to recognize that what happens as a result of that is we strengthen that muscle and we can come back maybe just a little bit stronger the next time, and the next time, and the next time.

But we have to tell ourselves that. I have a thing on my computer, Pete, I call it my smile file, and I just drag and drop like emails and notes and LinkedIn and all that. I mean, it’s just a blessing, and I’ll just drag and drop them from time to time into my little smile file. And after maybe a tough day or a tough moment or a tough meeting or a tough conversation, or anything, you kind of open that up and look at it, and go, “Okay, you know what? I got this.” Right?

And maybe it’s something physical on your desk. As an agent, athletes, they go to film to reset. That’s how athletes often will recover. They’ll go watch their best golf swings. They’ll watch them standing over a putt in a critical moment in training, they go watch their at-bats when they’re just crushing it. And they remind themselves, “Okay, yeah, right. Like, I got this,” and they get that in their head before they step back out to the next moment.

And I think we, as business people, we don’t really go to film, but what can we lean into that can help us reset? Sometimes it’s a smile file or something physical.

Pete Mockaitis
Yeah, that’s beautiful. And as you talk about it, it’s funny, we had a guest who talked about having a humor first-aid kit, so I just assemble things that I think are funny, and that’s helpful for a mood pick-me-up, for sure.

Molly Fletcher
A hundred percent.

Pete Mockaitis
But the smile file, I like it, in terms of it’s generally me being awesome, crushing it, winning, performing well. Cool. And then I I’m thinking, maybe I’m overthinking it, Molly, but I think it could be quite powerful to have sort of subfolders in your smile file associated with kind of wherever the self-doubt is cropping up. It’s like, “Oh, I’m no good at sales. It seems like I’m always blowing the meeting when I finally get it,” or whatever it is, like, “I’m not good at speaking,” “I’m not creative,” “I’m a bad husband,” sort of fill in the blanks, you know?

Then to have, it’s like, “Well, time out, let’s review some film, or smiles, or let’s review some historical evidence. Yes, I had a disappointing outcome a moment ago, and let’s just put that in the context of, ‘Oh, yeah, there was that one time I closed that massive deal out of nowhere. Oh, there’s that one time I won over that person,’” etc., and it seems like that’s sort of not just a humor first-aid but a first-aid for any emotional mental wound of confidence that’s hitting you.

Molly Fletcher
A hundred percent. I mean, I think that’s great, I mean, I think to have those subcategories. I often will tell salespeople to pull back and think of, “What are the most, your top ten, top five sort of rebuttals, like pushbacks when you’re selling, for example? Go attach a story to that, that aligns with how you’ve actually created a positive outcome for an existing client, relative to what is often maybe a rebuttal or pushback that you get. And build up that story bank of great stories that you can then lean into to help offset what is, an often, common rebuttal.”

To me, that can be really powerful, too, is stories are such a powerful thing that we can use whether even if it’s externally as well, so we can preload those. And so, when you said those subfolders, it made me think of the way that I often think about that from a sales perspective, that can be a powerful thing to do, too.

Pete Mockaitis
Yeah, that’s good, that handling objections, like handling your own inner critics’ objections to your worth or competence.

Molly Fletcher
Totally. Yes, for sure.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. Could you share a favorite quote, something you find inspiring?

Molly Fletcher
“When you ask for the business, you get advice. When you ask for advice, you get the business.”

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

Molly Fletcher
There was a study out of, I talk about this in Dynamic Drive, I want to say it was out of Princeton, but it was a really interesting study about the power of dopamine that it has on our pursuits. And so, essentially, it was recognizing the fact that when we acknowledge our effort along the way, and that we actually drip dopamine that helps us continue to pursue it.

And so, it’s just important that, as we set goals, that we don’t set them in isolation. And it proved it scientifically relative to the power of recognizing that, “Hey, I’m doing a good job. I’m on the right track. Things are tracking. Like, we’re going to do this. We’re going to get here.” It actually drips a little bit of dopamine that helps keep us motivated, because motivation, you know, it wanes, right? So, sometimes we can tap into that natural substance we all have inside of us.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. And a favorite book?

Molly Fletcher
The Alchemist was a book I read when I was young. And, to me, it was just an incredible story, really, of purpose. And that’s probably my favorite along with the Bible.

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

Molly Fletcher
I would say it is, essentially, my energy audit that I unpacked in the key, but it is a tool that ensures that I protect and create micro-breaks throughout the day and protect the things that really give me energy throughout the day because I think if we don’t carve out micro-breaks and other things that give us energy, it’s not sustainable to go back to back to back all day. We’ve got to make sure that we build in those breaks.

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

Molly Fletcher
“Be where your feet are,” is something that I often say about being present, and people seem to really connect to that. “Be where your feet are,” that we tell ourselves that when we need to really show up and be present.

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

Molly Fletcher
My podcast Game Changers with Molly Fletcher is awesome, or a place to start, or MollyFletcher.com.

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

Molly Fletcher
To me, that would be a final, I would say, that’s a really powerful call to action for people is to do an alignment audit. Identify the things in your life that matter most, rate yourself on how you’re doing in those things, and then, if there’s a gap on a 1 to 10 scale of greater than 2, that’s an opportunity to step into maybe some change, an opportunity to get better.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. Molly, thank you.

Molly Fletcher
Thanks so much.

Mar 31
0

1045: How to Stop Overthinking and Build Mental Resilience with Joseph Nguyen

By | Podcasts | One Comment

Joseph Nguyen discusses the hidden relationship between thinking and suffering—and offers a powerful framework for achieving peace of mind.

You’ll Learn

  1. How to spot and stop negative judgments
  2. How to PAUSE overthinking
  3. How to beat procrastination with SPA

About Joseph

Joseph Nguyen is the author of the #1 international bestselling book, Don’t Believe Everything You Think, which has been translated into 40+ languages. He is a writer who helps others realize who they truly are beyond their own thinking and conditioning to live an abundant life free from psychological and emotional suffering. When he’s not busy petting his three cats that he’s allergic to, he spends the rest of his time writing, teaching, speaking, and sharing timeless wisdom to help people discover their own divinity from within and how they are the answer they’ve been looking for their entire lives.

Resources Mentioned

Thank You, Sponsors!

Joseph Nguyen Interview Transcript

Pete Mockaitis
Joseph, welcome!

Joseph Nguyen
Thank you so much for having me, Pete.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, I’m excited to talk about your area of expertise. Your book, Don’t Believe Everything You Think, has just taken off tremendously. Congratulations.

Joseph Nguyen
Thank you.

Pete Mockaitis
And the title is so good. It’s so funny, Amazon auto-completes if you type, “Don’t believe everything you think.” It’s like, “Nice.”

Joseph Nguyen
Yeah, that’s a great advertisement, I guess, and a great slogan just to have all over Amazon. It’s what it should be, instead of all the stuff that we don’t need to be buying.

Pete Mockaitis
Don’t buy many other things here.

Joseph Nguyen
Exactly.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, so can you take us through the journey a little bit of how you and your relationship to thought and the insights that you discovered came to be in your own personal lived existence?

Joseph Nguyen
A lot of what I’ve come to realize comes from, this is not new information. This has been here for eons, thousands of years, from everyone and so many different countries, cultures. I mean, I draw influence from Western philosophy, Eastern philosophies, Zen Buddhism, Christianity. So much cognitive behavioral therapy. Like, you name it, there’s probably some sort of influence there.

But I think the only time that I was able to actually integrate it into my life was when I sort of hit a rock-bottom moment where, after I really tried as much as I possibly could all the options that were available to me, like, I mean, there’s therapy, there’s acupuncture, acupressure, there’s going vegan. I did all these things and it didn’t really quite work until it forced me to look internally.

I was trying to do everything to change everything outside of me, so changing people’s behaviors, how they viewed me, how they judged me, wanting and trying to earn other people’s approval, love, all these sorts of things, all these attempts at finding what could only be found within. So, I think the moment where I kind of hit rock bottom, which was a point in my life where, I mean, I had a business that was growing. It was going great. I accomplished a lot of the goals that I had, but at the cost of my own mental health.

So, every single day, I was just so chronically anxious, borderline depressed. I was probably depressed. I just wouldn’t admit it to myself that that was it. And I just didn’t know when the next client was coming from. I didn’t know if we’re going to have enough money, food. My partner, now wife, she had a lot of physiological illnesses.

So, she had gastroparesis, and so she couldn’t eat, got a feeding tube, hospitalized multiple times. All of that was happening concurrently with, basically, my business falling apart. Then my business partner and I split. I went 50,000 into debt at around 21, 22 years old. And so, all of that happened within a span of about a year.

And so, that was probably the rock-bottom moment that I hit, where I thought, after accomplishing everything that I wanted, that it would give me this internal peace and joy, but it did the exact opposite. And that was because I didn’t realize where peace comes from, and it doesn’t come from manipulating the environment or other people or the world to whatever I think it needs to be. It comes from releasing that desire, that need to change everything outside of me except myself.

So, rock bottom, I think pain is a great motivator and catalyst for change. Most people, like myself, probably wouldn’t change if it wasn’t absurdly painful. So, I’m actually very grateful for those experiences, but it’s quite difficult to go through it. But that was the genesis of the turning point for me.

Pete Mockaitis
Yes, thank you for sharing that. That’s heavy, and it’s a lot. And I think what you’re articulating dead on, we just chatted with Anne-Laure Le Cunff, who discussed the arrival fallacy, this notion, “Ah, yes, when this happens, then it’ll be smooth sailing. I’ll be happy. I’ll be free. I’ll be at peace. All my problems will be solved.”

And it just doesn’t work out that way. And sometimes we don’t believe it until, as you’ve said, we experience that pain. We have arrived and go, “Uh-oh, shoot, these feelings are still there, that lack of peace is still there.

Joseph Nguyen
Yes.

Pete Mockaitis
So, what then? What happened next?

Joseph Nguyen
So, it basically forced me to look inside, because I was trying all these modalities to help, and they did help to a certain extent, but it didn’t really change that much. And it puzzled me, because I thought to myself, “I surely can’t be the only one going through this. So that’s when I started looking for a lot of different solutions.

And then I started questioning my own experiences, and other people’s experiences too, which is I think most people, if not every single human, goes through extremely difficult and challenging events and times or even traumas.

And so, I started to ask myself and run thought experiments, where it was like, “If two people, have similar traumas, how is it possible that one person can spiral downwards and fall into a deep depression and isn’t really able to get out of it, while another person who has gone through something similar is able to make amends and make peace with the past and become okay with what happened?”

And not only that, but become empowered by what happened and go on to want to help other people not experience the same thing. How is that possible if we can’t go back and change the past? So, neither one of them went back to alter the events in any single way, which means it’s not the events that was changed, but their own thinking about what happened to them.

And so, that sparked an epiphany, which was, our emotions don’t come from external events, they come from our own thinking about the events, which is our own judgments, our own opinions, our own criticisms about the event, or even ourselves and our own thoughts about whatever happened. And so, that was what kind of made a giant light bulb moment for me, which is like, “Oh, my gosh, there’s no way to change the past, but I can always change the way that I’m viewing it. Is this helpful or hurtful? This sort of incessant nonstop negative judgment of life, of myself, of other people?”

And so, that spawned a whole slew of new questions for myself, which was like, “Why do I do that? Why do I constantly wish things were different? Why do I constantly tell myself that I’m not enough, not good enough, not smart enough, not whatever it is, and repeating these stories to myself?” And I never stopped to ask myself, “Is that actually helpful? When has overthinking helped me?”

And so, I realized then that overthinking doesn’t solve problems, it creates them and exacerbates them. And I just didn’t understand that I could just not judge, negatively judge, the things that are happening in my life or myself. That was an extremely liberating moment for me. And, I mean, most of the thoughts that we have, we have over 60,000 thoughts in a single day. How is it possible that every single one of those thoughts is true? There’s no way, right?

And if it were true that we are our thoughts, what happens to the thought that just passed our minds, that just left? We’re still here.

Pete Mockaitis
I’d disappear.

Joseph Nguyen
Yeah, yeah, yeah, we’re still here, right? So, that means we are something beyond our thoughts. Same thing with emotions. If we are our emotions, if I am depressed, or if I am anxious, if I am those things, or I am happy, what happens when those things pass, anxiety or happiness? I’m still here. How is that possible?

So, we are not our thoughts and we are not our emotions then. We are something greater than that. And that is the feeling and the space that I sink back into to finally find some peace because I realize that everything in life is transient, including our thoughts. And if we are the common denominator that is still here, then those fleeting things can’t be possibly us. That was the eye-opener for me.

Pete Mockaitis
Yeah. Wow, there’s so much good stuff here, and I’m just drawing all kinds of connections. I recall I was in a therapy session once, and I posed the same question, and it’s like, “So, is it true that, like Nietzsche or Kelly Clarkson says, that which doesn’t kill you makes you stronger?” Or, is it the opposite experience in which, “No, I had a bad thing happen to me and I’m somehow less strong, weaker, not as capable as a result of the experience”?

So, it’s like, “So which is it? And under what circumstances, and why, and what’s the distinction?” And he didn’t give me the easy answer, “That’s one of the greatest questions of therapy.”

Joseph Nguyen

He was amping you up, yeah.

Pete Mockaitis
So, yeah, I mean, and that is one of the assertions, I believe, of cognitive behavioral therapy or of Shakespeare. There’s nothing good or bad, but rather thinking makes it so, and our cognitive distortions or our thoughts about things and judgments shape the emotional reactions and experiences we have. And we had a Navy Seal Alden Mills sharing some similar notions, like, “Hey, is this thought helpful or hurtful? All right. Well, then let’s bring some energy to the helpful thoughts.”

And we got some real wisdom there. It’s, like, we cannot be our thoughts, we cannot be our emotions, because our thoughts and our emotions are ever shifting and changing. And that sounds wise and familiar. Is this coming from a wisdom tradition? Or is this a Joseph original?

Joseph Nguyen
Oh, no, nothing is original from me. Creativity is just a blend of a lot of different parts and combining it into something seemingly new. But it’s all from Eastern philosophy, some Western, right, some Stoicism, Zen, Buddhism, in that there’s tons of psychology in there, right? Like cognitive behavioral therapy uses so much of this in terms of questioning our own thoughts, our own emotions, trying to figure out the root cause of all this. So, all of that, I definitely stand on the shoulders of many, many giants from centuries or millennia.

Pete Mockaitis
And so, you put a stake in the ground, and it seems like you’ve got some real conviction here, that it is, indeed, our thoughts and judgments and overthinking, over-thoughts, about a situation that is the source of our depression, anxiety. And I’m thinking, is it the only source, the primary source? Are we sure about this? It sounds true-ish, but what’s our best evidence for it?

Joseph Nguyen
Yeah, that’s a great question. So, in terms of emotions, there’s no way to really prevent “negative emotions.” Those will always come and go. What I propose in the book is less about preventing them, but to reduce the time spent experiencing those emotions. Because a lot of times, we are replaying and ruminating on memories of the past, and bringing them into the present moment and reliving that experience from a certain vantage point of it, which may or may not be true, I don’t know.

But if it makes us feel a lot of anxiety or depression or resentment, is that possible for us to change? And if so, then how? And so, in the book, I started to realize, like, let’s say there’s a lot of people in veteran hospitals or recovering in Alcoholics Anonymous or tons of people who have been through so many different things. How is it possible that there’s people that have gone through something similar, but then have different results?

So, it’s like, “What are they changing? They’re not going back in the past to do that, so they’re changing something now in the present moment to alter their experience.” And so, that’s where the book is coming from, which is like, “What can we do now that things have happened, and becoming more resilient, right?”

This is building and training emotional regulation and resilience rather than a prevention of emotions in totality, because a lot of times, sometimes emotions are very helpful. They help to protect us. They help give us signs. All emotions are messengers to help us and to show us what we need to pay attention to. That’s all emotions are.

But if we believe them to be the only source of truth and an ultimate conclusion about ourselves, then that’s where we run into trouble. And, let’s say, if we’re really depressed, then we might think about ourselves, and say, “We’re not enough. We’re not lovable. We’ll never find love.” These sorts of beliefs about ourselves, which is what I call “thinking” or “negative judgments,” those things are not necessarily that helpful and they harm us more than help us.

And so, is it possible to let those things go? And if so, how? So, for me, why I use the word “thinking” in particular is because it’s the best word I could find to explain the phenomena of just ruminating negatively on something. So I make a distinction in the book, thoughts versus thinking. A thought is a neutral observation or intuitive prompting about an event that happened.

Pete Mockaitis

“I would like to eat some food.”

Joseph Nguyen
Yeah, that is a thought.

Pete Mockaitis
I mean, that’s a desire.

Joseph Nguyen
Yeah, that could be a desire.

Pete Mockaitis
A thought and a desire.

Joseph Nguyen
Yeah, and then thinking, on the other hand, is a negative judgment about an event or your own thoughts. So, let’s take a scenario.

Pete Mockaitis
“I’m overweight. I shouldn’t eat all this food.”

Joseph Nguyen
Right. See, “should” is a great indicator that we’re thinking, right? That’s usually a preliminary word that we use before we judge ourselves. And so, an example of this is, let’s say it’s raining outside. A thought is, “It’s raining.” That’s a neutral observation. Thinking, on the other hand, would be something like, “Why is this happening? Why does this always happen to me? This rain completely ruined my day. I’m always unlucky like this.”

All of this thinking about the thought of it raining is not as helpful to us and is the source of all this suffering. So, let’s say we did have something planned and it rained and it ruined our day, that’s unfortunate, right? Like, we had plans, we planned for it, but is it possible to not let it ruin our entire day? Is it possible to let go of this emotional suffering within a few minutes?

And so, that’s why I say that’s the thinking part of whatever is going on. And although we can’t change the event or even our initial thought of it, we can always let go of the thinking or judgment about whatever is going on, and that’s where the power lies. For example, thoughts have no power over us unless we believe them to be true, right? So, the belief in the judgment is what causes this suffering and is the difference.

Pete Mockaitis
Yes. Well, now, as you use the word “thinking,” I am wondering if we could have other, do some other thinking, or judging about the rain in a positive fashion, in terms of, “At last, the crops will be nourished by this rain,” or, “You know what, let’s just frolic like a child.”

And so, in your definition, would you still call that thinking even though it has maybe a positive vibe or feeling associated with it?

Joseph Nguyen
I think there’s two different categories of what we can call positive thinking. On one hand, it could just be an intuitive prompting. An example of that would just be, “It’s raining. Let’s go outside and play in the rain.” It doesn’t necessarily have to skew towards, “This is the best thing that’s ever happened in the entire world.”

See, like where we can over-exaggerate positive thinking is equally where we can fall short of it because who’s to say it is the best thing in the entire world? Because if it’s raining here, it might flood somewhere else. So, it’s very difficult to just, ultimately and conclusively, say if this is good or bad. And so, if we are overly positive about something, then it opens us up for, “Well, what if that might not be the case?”

Pete Mockaitis
Yes, so it might feel good, but we’re not necessarily getting closer to truth or accurate representation of reality.

Joseph Nguyen
Correct, yeah. And we can skew both ways, and that’s when positive thinking can then open us up all sorts of cans of worms. But that’s not to say that positive thinking doesn’t work, and I don’t want to say that at all. It certainly does work, but the question is, “Is it sustainable? And is it based in reality?” So, if we observe the rain, and we’re like, “Oh, look, it’s like nourishing the crops,” like that’s a neutral and true observation, like it is feeding the plants and all that stuff, and we can feel good about that.

But what I also observed as well was, once we let go of the negative judgment about things, we are naturally at peace. We are naturally more joyful. We skew towards that way. And if you look at children that are a couple years old, they skew towards happiness. They’re smiling, they’re happy, unless they’re like hungry or like something is physiologically wrong. They’re generally just very positive, very happy, laughing all the time.

And that’s our natural state as well if we don’t negatively judge whatever situation is going on. If we let go of worrying about the future or ruminating and resenting the past, that is our default state. So, you don’t necessarily have to try to be positive. And other examples I love giving is, think about or recall a time where it’s like you were very anxious, or stressed, or overwhelmed. Like, how much thinking is going on?

Pete Mockaitis
Plenty.

Joseph Nguyen
Too much, right? But then if we flip and invert the question, recall a time when you were your happiest, in a total state of flow, and you lost track of time, how much thinking was going on then?

Pete Mockaitis
Yeah, it’s, I guess per your definition of thinking, like, very little. Although, if you’re in a flow and doing a thing, you naturally have to—

Joseph Nguyen
You’re having thoughts.

Pete Mockaitis
Yes, you’re having thoughts, but you’re not thinking in the Joseph-sense of the word.

Joseph Nguyen
Right, you’re not negatively judging the thoughts or experience that you’re having. You’re just in it, you’re fully immersed. That’s when you lose a sense of self, actually, and that’s when we are no longer psychologically suffering. And some people in the spiritual community will call this like the death of the ego. It’s when you just dissolve and you feel at one with everything. That’s what flow is and why a lot of times people will say like that’s this ideal state for humans to be in.

Athletes experience this very often when they’re in and playing a game during a competition. They’re not so much thinking about what’s going on. They are just intuitively responding and being there. And that’s like our ideal state that we’re in. Actually, the times that athletes think too much, they tend to miss the shots, or think too much about something and overanalyze, and that’s when they freeze and choke when they could have definitely done something different.

The same thing is true for our own lives. The more that we constantly just ruminate, judge, and criticize ourselves, other people, events, we tend to freeze, and go into fight-or-flight mode, and act as if our life really is in danger, and operate from a place of fear rather than love and expansion and joy.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, Joseph, we’re getting near a zone I’ve been pondering for a while, which is, you talk about when we feel a sense of peace or joy and flow, contentment. And I’ve been reflecting on the distinction between contentment and boredom. Because, in terms of an external view of the situation, they’re almost the same.

It’s like, “Nothing’s really happening right now.” And yet, when we feel bored, we’re restless, agitated, and, I guess, negatively judging, “I don’t like that nothing’s going on right now,” versus when we are content, it’s like, “Ah, nothing’s going on right now.” And that feels restful, rejuvenating, restorative, and we like and appreciate the space that we find ourselves in.

So, I guess that is perhaps one of many examples of the judgment we bring to a situation, shaping it, but I’d love your pro tip. If we find ourselves bored and would rather be content, what should we do?

Joseph Nguyen
Yeah, great question. So, boredom is not necessarily a bad thing. Boredom, a lot of times, is the birth of creation, new things, new hobbies, new thoughts, new ideas. If we’re not bored a lot of the time or sometimes, then we’re actually just recycling a lot of the same material from the past and constantly going and we feel like we’re in the hamster wheel. So, boredom is not necessarily bad. And when you see kids get bored, what do they do? They invent.

Pete Mockaitis
They invent some games.

Joseph Nguyen
Exactly. That’s what humans do. When we’re bored, we create, and so it acts as a great motivator. But where things can go a little bit south is when we say, “Oh, instead of being content with what’s happening right now,” let’s say we’re on vacation, “I should be working. If I’m working these hours, I could make so much more money or I have all these emails I need to get to.”

You’re not able to actually enjoy yourself in the present moment, and you’re constantly thinking about the future and all these things you need to get done, that’s when the “boredom” or what we would call that in that case, that’s when it robs our peace and takes it away from us is when we think we need to be doing something else other than what we’re currently doing or experiencing.

So, in that case, what I love recommending to do is just to schedule those things and just, like, if you’re on vacation, like that’s the boundary you need to draw for yourself. But if we don’t draw boundaries, it will creep in. All of these beliefs that we have, all these negative judgments that we have about ourselves or what we should and shouldn’t be doing, they will come in unless we set that boundary for ourselves.

Like, “If I’m on vacation, my phone is off,” or, “I’m not taking emails or whatever it is.” But without those, they will creep in and they will start to fester and become uncontrollable at that point. And this is really a practice of presence more than anything else. Are we able to do and give our full attention to what is happening right now in front of us? Or, are we distracted and thinking about something else in the meantime?

Peace comes from being present. It is a natural byproduct of doing so. The more that we are able to do that, that’s the happier we will be, for sure.

Pete Mockaitis
I’m reminded of the Scientific Journal article, “A Wandering Mind is an Unhappy Mind,” which, I think it was Kahneman and company looked at just that in terms of empirically checking with people and, “Hey, what are you doing? What are you thinking about?” and seeing the results. So, that’s that there. When you say boundaries, my first thought is sort of external things, like, “I will not be picking up my smartphone,” “I will not be answering emails on vacation.” Do you have some thoughts for boundaries we have, like with ourselves and our own thoughts or experiences?

Joseph Nguyen
Those are the most important boundaries because we can change everything external but if we don’t change anything internally then we’re still going to suffer a lot emotionally. So, some of the most important internal boundaries that you so aptly alluded to are the judgments that we’re making that is really at the core of our emotional suffering, of our resentment towards others, to ourselves.

If we don’t draw that boundary, and say, like, “We will no longer judge ourselves in this light,” then we’re going to keep doing it. And we do this mostly because we’re not even aware that there’s an option out, that, “Oh, we can just not judge everything that’s going on? Like, there’s a way that, as I go about my life, I don’t have to constantly narrate and say this is good, this is bad, this is right, this is wrong, this should be happening, this shouldn’t be happening?”

We just aren’t taught that. Most people just don’t know, and I wasn’t aware of that until I was basically smacked in the face with it and had to hit rock bottom to find it. But that is probably the most important boundary to set, which is, “Can we let go of the judgments that we’re having about ourselves, the world, whatever’s happening? Are we able to enjoy it as it is?”

When we go about life, most of the time we judge everything, “This person’s good,” “This person’s bad,” “This person’s evil,” “This person’s not,” “This is beautiful or ugly.” Like, there are so many things that happen. But when we walk in nature, like how many of us are saying, “This flower is ugly. This flower is like beautiful,” or, like, “This tree is crooked or what”?

Like, we just observe and enjoy nature as it is rather than constantly pick apart every single thing that we think is wrong with this tree. As soon as we do that, that’s when we suffer. So, nature is a great way to reset because of that and it brings us back to our true nature, ironically, of just being aware and giving our full attention to someone without judging them. That’s what the basis of love is, unconditional love, which is to fully accept someone as they are without wanting to change them, without wanting them just to be something different.

Full acceptance of that is where peace comes from. This not only goes for people, but for situations, anything. That is the root of unconditional love. And use that thought experiment for yourself. Like, when do you feel most loved by someone? When they’re constantly judging you, nagging you, saying you should do this, saying you should be different, you should be better, you should be doing any of these things, or when they fully accept you as you are without judging? That is the goal of everything.

Pete Mockaitis
I love that. My children would say, when we do hugs and kisses in flying blanket mode.

Joseph Nguyen
Exactly.

Pete Mockaitis
But it falls into a subcategory of what you’re describing. I like that notion about the narration that we’re just doing it all the time, and it might not even seem too intense, like, “I’m such a stupid idiot.” But even just like, “Oh, oh, oh, the sun is kind of in my eyes. Oh, it’s kind of hot. Like, oh, I’m getting tired.”

Like, there you are in nature, you might not be condemning the tree for being crooked, but we are narrating and judging – well, I am often – experiences they’re in, in terms of like the air temperature or the illumination that is not perfectly aligned to the preferences I have in that moment.

Joseph Nguyen
Yeah, and that’s where all the suffering comes from, is just what we wish would happen, what we want the world to be. But peace comes from letting go of what we wish everything would be and accept it for how it actually is. And, yes, same goes for anything in life, people, even ourselves. In AA, like one of the first steps is acceptance. The five stages of grief, acceptance is what you’re trying to go for.

And in CBT, acceptance of whatever emotions we’re feeling is also a core component of the whole process. So, at the end of it all, like all these different modalities are pointing to the same thing, which is, “Can I let go of the judgment that I’m having of whatever is happening and going on?” Once we’re able to let go of that thinking mind, the fear-based mind and the judgmental mind, then we’re able to find a little peace.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, you said that we have the option to stop the narration, and I am a frequent Audible listener who likes to pause my audiobooks. And I understand you’ve got a little acronym you can walk us through.

Joseph Nguyen
Yes, exactly. So, this acronym, I tried to make it as actionable as possible in terms of, I mean, what we’re doing is letting go of the judgments. That’s the whole purpose of this. And so, this makes the act of letting go a little bit more tangible. So, the first letter in the acronym is P, which is pause. So, pause and take deep breaths, and you don’t need to get fancy with it. Just take five deep breaths. There’s no specific way you need to do it.

But it’s been scientifically proven that taking deep breaths allows us to lower our heart rate, to regulate our emotions, and to come back to center. So, just do that in the beginning of anything, because it’s really hard to regulate or do anything or make decisions or come back to yourself when we’re in a fight or flight mode. Next is A, which is ask ourselves, “Is this thinking useful?” Just like the other psychologists you mentioned before, like, “Is this thinking making me feel the way that I want?” If not, the next step is U, which is understand that you have the ability to let that thinking or judgment go. We always have that power. We may not be able to control our thoughts, but we can always control our thinking about the thoughts, and therein lies our entire power to change our experience of life.

S is, say and repeat the mantra, “Thinking is the root cause of suffering.” You can use any mantra in this matter. Another one, for example, would be, “I let go and choose peace.” Any mantra rooted in truth will work, and it needs to be short and memorable. What mantras do is that it’s very difficult to think of two things simultaneously.

So, what it does is it focuses your attention on this one thing, which means you can’t be thinking about the future or ruminating about the past. So, it forces focus and attention on something that is true. So, repeating that for maybe 30 seconds to a minute is really all you need, and that will slow the thinking mind. It will calm things down significantly.

That’s the basis of Transcendental Meditation as well, what a lot of the Tibetan monks use to go beyond the mind and to achieve oneness with the universe. But we take it here and you’re able to use it in real time.

Then E, the last step is to experience your emotions fully without resistance. So, we’re not trying to bypass the emotions by just not thinking about it. We’re actually removing the judgment of the emotions because what we resist persists. So, if we are resisting the anxiety, it usually gets worse, which is why a lot of times, when someone has a panic attack, they’re much more prone to more panic attacks simply because that’s how, it’s just like self-fulfilling, so to speak.

It’s like once we experience something and don’t want it to happen, we just put up a wall and just constantly resist it. But in physics, an object in motion will stay in motion, right? But also, for every force, there’s an equal and opposite force happening. So, if you have this force of an emotion and you’re resisting the emotion, that emotion is going to constantly be there and it’s going to stay stuck unless it passes through your system.

Anything that is stuck creates a significant amount of suffering. So, for a slightly more comical and light-hearted example is, like, if you eat a lot of food and it doesn’t pass through your system, what happens? Like, a week, a month passes, it’s going to be very painful and it’s going to cause all sorts of issues.

The same thing is true for our thoughts and emotions. The more that we hold on to our thoughts and don’t let them pass through, the more it’s going to cause us a lot of emotional suffering. Thoughts, emotions, all these things are transient and meant to pass through us, just like water flowing through a river.

As soon as a river is dammed up, that’s when wildlife begins to dwindle, fish begin to die, all these things start to happen. But as soon as the river is able to flow, that’s when life begins to flourish. That is the same thing for our own lives. So, letting thoughts and emotions pass through us without resistance. So, the way to do that is to create space within ourselves, to honor and hold the emotions, and to not judge them.

See them as another entity, like our inner child, or even one of our own children, and to hold them within our hearts, and to give them space to be there, without judging them, without saying, “You shouldn’t be here. Why are you here again?” That’s what we say to these emotions a lot of times, like, “Why are you still here, anger?” And we’re angry at the anger, and so it just compounds.

But as soon as we say, “Oh, you’re welcome here. You’re not an enemy. It’s okay.” As soon as you give children space, time, and attention, things begin to settle and we’re able to regulate. The same thing is true for all of our emotions and it passes so much more quickly when we’re doing this rather than kind of putting up a wall. So that’s the whole entire process.

Pause, take deep breaths. A, ask yourself, “Is this thinking helpful or useful?” U, which is understand you have the ability to let that thinking go. S, which is say and repeat the mantra. And E, which is experience your emotions fully without resistance.

Pete Mockaitis
Beautiful. Thank you. And if I may put some numbers into this, so you had a mantra, I counted, it was about seven words. Is that around the length that we’re thinking about? Like, if you push it to 20, it’s outside mantra zone?

Joseph Nguyen
Probably. It just creates so much more thinking and you’re probably going to have to try to remember, “Am I saying it right? Did I forget a word?” And you’re trying to make it as simple as possible so that you don’t have to overthink it.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. And then with experience, I think when I’ve resisted, historically, it’s been almost out of a fear that, “If I begin to experience this sadness, this sorrow, this grieving at this deeply unfortunate thing that has occurred, then will it swallow me? Will it persist for a long time and impact the things I need to do this day, this week, this month?”

And so, I can sometimes push away. But you say with the water flowing situation, and that which we resist persists, we are better off experiencing it fully. I mean, Joseph, for those fellow aversive pushers, away-ers…

Joseph Nguyen
Master push-up-ers, yeah.

Pete Mockaitis
…how long are we in for a rough emotional experience if we allow it to hang out?

Joseph Nguyen
I will say shorter than if you’re resisting it.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay.

Joseph Nguyen
So, the irony in it is that, when we’re pushing it away, we think that we’re not dealing with it but we’re still suffering. We’re constantly thinking about it, we’re wishing it were different, we’re ruminating on it constantly, but what we don’t understand is that when we just allow it to be there, that it passes so much more quickly.

I think neuroscience is saying now that it takes about 90 seconds for an emotion to be regulated in our bodies. The only reason why it’s prolonged most of the time is that we begin ruminating on the event or judging the situation that happened, and it resets that time period. So, we’ll go 90 seconds, and right before that, we think about it again, we’ll judge it again, and it keeps prolonging the cycle.

And so, it only takes a few minutes to do this and to let go, and it’s not like the entire emotion will go away, but the intensity of the emotion will be drastically reduced than what it was when we were resisting. And, over time, as you build the muscle of emotional resiliency and emotional regulation, it becomes a little bit easier to do every single time. And the threshold in which we become overwhelmed is significantly expanded, so we can take on a lot more in life.

We’re able to do a lot more. We’re able to endure a lot of these events with a lot more grace and a lot more love. But, yeah, it’s definitely scary to kind of allow these emotions to come in because we think that we might not be able to handle it. We might crumble under the emotion. But you have to ask yourself, like we were saying before, like, “Am I my thoughts? Am I this emotion?”

And think about all the difficult times and trauma that you’ve been through, and all the trauma, like, you’re still here. So, I mean, you’re greater than every single emotion that you’ve ever experienced. And the same is true now and it will ever, and it will be true forever because those things are not us.

Pete Mockaitis
Joseph, beautiful stuff. Could you share any final thoughts before we hear about some of your favorite things?

Joseph Nguyen
Yeah, I would run micro-experiments with yourself. Like, you actually don’t have to believe anything that I’m saying, ironically, like the book title. Test it out for yourself. See if it’s true, if thinking is the root cause of your emotional suffering. And the way that you can test this out is to try to suspend judgment, negative judgment about yourself, your own thoughts, your own emotions, external things, people, circumstances.

See if you can suspend judgment for about seven days. That’s it. You don’t have to do a month. You don’t have to do a year. Just see if you can let go of the judgments that your mind is creating, for seven days and see how you feel afterwards. If it significantly improves your emotional well-being, awesome! Continue doing it.

And if it doesn’t, that’s completely okay, and you can find another modality that might work for you. But at the very least, try it and see what happens. And it is only through our own lived experience that you know what truth is, rather than just taking someone’s word for it. So, that’s what I would encourage everyone to do, and just see for yourself.

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

Joseph Nguyen
One of my favorite quotes is actually in the book, which is from Jonathan Safran Foer, which is, “I think, I think, I think. I’ve thought myself out of happiness one million times, but never once into it.”

Pete Mockaitis
Yeah, very good. Very good. Thank you. And a favorite study or experiment or bit of research?

Joseph Nguyen
The neuroscience study that I was alluding to before, I don’t know exactly what experiment it was.

But they were studying about how long it takes for our emotions to actually pass through our systems, and it was about 90 seconds, which was mind-boggling to me because I thought it would take, you know, like multiple minutes or at least like, I don’t know, 10 minutes, for like, if you’re angry of something, like it feels like it takes way longer than 90 seconds.

So, that was a profound shift in me to realize that, “Oh, my gosh, like it is possible to let go of a lot of these emotions quite quickly.” And it’s actually important to follow this. You don’t have to follow this process, specifically, but you can follow any process, but it’s really important to do it in real time as you’re going about your day.

So, this process is, if you’re experiencing something in traffic, or your boss says something, or your parents say something, or your friends says something that creates a negative emotional reaction within you, it’s important to use the process then rather than only use it in the morning or in the evening like meditating, right?

That way you are actually strengthening your emotional resiliency throughout the entire day. It’s a little bit easier to find peace when you’re alone in your room and it’s dark, your blindfolds are on, there’s like Zen music, right? It’s like a little bit easier to find peace there, but the true test is, “Are you able to find peace while also, like let’s say your boss is screaming at your face, or making fun of you, or your friends are doing something that you don’t really approve of, or your parents are criticizing you in front of other family members?

That’s the time that you’re truly tested for, if you’re able to find peace. And this is something that you can use during those times rather than you need to bust out like a 30-minute meditation just to find a little bit of alleviation. So, that’s one other thing I would do, too.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, thank you. And a favorite book?

Joseph Nguyen
This one’s very interesting, maybe slightly controversial, but it currently is Outwitting the Devil by Napoleon Hill.

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

Joseph Nguyen
I like to use this particular framework on just when I’m doing work because I have issues, a lot of times. Just like procrastinating like most people or just putting off things that I know I need to be doing. And one of the most effective things that I’ve done is to follow the SPA methodology, which is just, if I’m overwhelmed by something, just take the next smallest possible action, so SPA, and doing that.

So, if it’s, “I need to write another book,” that’s a pretty big task, pretty scary, daunting, and it’s like, “Am I able to bust out a whole book in this one session?” Now, that’s typically what the mind thinks of. But if I break it down to the smallest possible action, like, “Am I able to just open the Word document? Can I just do that?” And I’m like, “Yeah, I can definitely click on Notion and open it up. I can definitely do that.” And if I still can’t do that, “Can I just sit at the computer desk?”

Pete Mockaitis
Yes.

Joseph Nguyen
So just keep breaking it down.

Pete Mockaitis
“Sit up from the couch.”

Joseph Nguyen
Yeah, sometimes it’s hard, right? Sometimes it’s really hard. And so, it’s okay if we need to break it down into those baby steps, but that works wonders for me. So, it’s like, “Can I write one sentence?” And when I write one sentence, I’m going to want to write another sentence, like I’m just going to go.

And, lo and behold, there’s like a couple dozen sentences, a couple hundred words pass, and that was way more progress than if I force myself sit down and write my book. That’s a big task. So, smallest possible action is what I like to default to when I am frozen in procrastination or analysis paralysis.

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

Joseph Nguyen
Our emotions don’t come from external events, but from our own thinking about those events. That is something that people just didn’t really realize, and so it’s like a massive epiphany moment for them. Other ones are just like, “I didn’t realize that I could just stop judging. I had no idea I could just not listen to that incessant negative critic in the back of our minds, and that I could just be and just be present. I don’t have to be thinking about something else or doing something else. I can let go of whatever that incessant chatter is, and to finally find a little bit of peace.”

Yeah, that big epiphany was like, oh, yeah, during the times that we are happiest, like we’re not really thinking about anything else, or ruminating on anything. We’re just there, fully engrossed by the moment. And so, those are probably like some of the biggest nuggets that people have gotten.

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

Joseph Nguyen
Probably, I would say my website and newsletter, so JosephNguyen.org, J-O-S-E-P-H N-G-U-Y-E-N.org. You’ll be able to find like my newsletter there, sign up for it. I do have a YouTube channel. I don’t post that often but a lot of the content there is evergreen. All my socials are just itsjosephnguyen, I-T-S and then Joseph Nguyen. Those are probably the best places to find me, but email is where you’ll be able to be up-to-date on any new projects I’m working on.

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

Joseph Nguyen
Let go of the fear of being judged. The more that we’re afraid of being ourselves, to be awesome at our jobs, the less effective we’ll be. And sometimes being ourselves will ruffle a few feathers. People will judge us one way or the other, even if we’re playing conservatively and not really showing that much at work.

People are still judging us anyway. So, we might as well be judged and criticized for being who we truly are rather than masquerading ourselves behind something else. And the more that you’re able to be yourself, the more awesome you’re going to be at your job, the more that you’re able to lean into your own gifts, your own talents, your abilities. All of that is usually held back if we’re afraid of what other people are thinking.

So, stand up for yourself, do what you believe is best for the work that you’re doing, and definitely defend it, and to not just let it be pushed over. Because at the end of the day, if you’re coming from a place of love, generosity, true selflessness, and wanting to do the best that you possibly can, there’s no shame in that at all. So, if you’re going to be criticized, definitely be criticized for doing what you believe is right, rather than hiding behind and playing it small.

Pete Mockaitis
Joseph, beautiful. Thank you.

Joseph Nguyen
Thank you so much, Pete. It’s been such a pleasure and so much fun with you. I love your energy.

Mar 27
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1044: Becoming the Boss that Everyone Wants to Work For with Sabina Nawaz

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Sabina Nawaz shows you how to cope with the pressures that come with leadership.

You’ll Learn

  1. The perils of getting promoted
  2. Why asking for feedback isn’t enough
  3. The power of shutting up

About Sabina

Sabina Nawaz is an elite executive coach who advises C-level executives and teams at Fortune 500 corporations, government agencies, nonprofits, and academic institutions around the world. During her fourteen-year tenure at Microsoft, she went from managing software development teams to leading the company’s executive development and succession planning efforts for over 11,000 managers and nearly a thousand executives.  She is the author of YOU’RE THE BOSS: Become the Manager You Want to Be (and Others Need).

 

Resources Mentioned

Thank You, Sponsors!

Sabina Nawaz Interview Transcript

Pete Mockaitis
Sabina, welcome!

Sabina Nawaz
Thanks so much, Pete. Looking forward to this.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, I’m so excited. You have studied managers up close and personal and in the trenches with them. Could you start us off by sharing one of the most particularly surprising and fascinating and counterintuitive discoveries you’ve made about us humans and managing from all your years at work here?

Sabina Nawaz
So, this book is not about how to become successful. It’s how to remain successful, and it’s about not all the things that people know, but what do they not know, as you said, counterintuitive stuff. Three of those.

One, being promoted is the riskiest time in your career. It is not power that corrupts, but pressure that corrupts. Pressure changes, not only stresses you out, but changes your actions. And power then blinds you to the impact of those actions. So, the higher you go, the less you know about the impact your actions are having on other people.

Pete Mockaitis
Yeah, those are big, and those are heavy. Well, I’m excited to dig into all of these promptly. But maybe, first, before we do, can you maybe just orient us to what’s the big idea or main message behind the book, You Are the Boss?

Sabina Nawaz
The main message is that pressure and power can be used for good or for harm. It’s your choice. And the choice comes from not needing to get a personality transplant, or to go on retreats for weeks on end, or to study emotional intelligence for the rest of your life, which I would still recommend you do, but by making a choice to use some simple tools and strategies to tackle the combined effect of the diabolical twins of power and pressure. The higher you go, the more important this becomes.

Pete Mockaitis
Diabolical twins. Okay. We’re sounding the alarm. We’re raising the flag. Okay. Well, so maybe could you share with us a story of the destructive potential that might be lurking for us that we’re not even aware of? So how about you give us a twin tale? Let’s hear a tale of surprised destruction, and a tale of disaster averted through prudent preparation.

Sabina Nawaz
Well, I’ll start with my own tale, because I tell a lot of tales in the book about a number of my clients, and I am not immune from this. I was a lousy manager at Microsoft, but that wasn’t always true. At first, I managed software teams and most of my people said I was the best boss they ever had, I cared for them, I coached them. Those were great years. And then everything changed.

I was running Microsoft’s management development when I was about eight months pregnant. My boss left the company so I took on her job responsibilities, and on my first day, as I’m getting ready to get back to work from parental leave, my assistant Lori calls me, frantic, “Where are you? Steve’s expecting you in 30 minutes.”

She reads the memo I’m supposed to discuss with Steve Ballmer, the CEO of Microsoft, as I’m hitting warp speed on my way to the freeway. And that set the tone, Pete, for overflowing inbox, packed calendar, infant at home, no peace, no sleep, no patience. I’m sure this sounds familiar to you and to your listeners. And, in a moment, I went from being caring and compassionate to snippy and short. Still 5’3″, but now short-tempered.

In my rush to meet those deadlines, I had no time for detailed instructions or to repeat myself, and I thought I was being efficient. I also micromanaged because I was worried that my team or I would look incompetent to these high-level executives. So, I’m thinking, “I’m killing it. I’m being efficient. Look at how much we’re getting done for the senior-most people in the organization,” until my colleague, Joe, comes to me.

And I take one look at Joe and I know he’s about to give me bad news. My shoulders are tightening, and then Joe says, “Zach is crying in his office because of what you said.” And my gut falls to the floor. Joe has my full attention, not multitasking as usual, and I feel my whole body turned hot from shame, I cannot make eye contact with Joe, I feel so guilty, and I think, “How did I get here? How did I go from being caring and compassionate to this, somebody people apparently fear and really don’t like?”

So, I take a drink of water, I walked across the hallway, knocked on Zach’s door, “Will you go for a walk with me?” And a minute into the walk, I say, “Zach, I’m so sorry. There’s no excuse for how I reacted in that meeting.” And Zach’s eyes brim with tears. And it was in that moment of connection, Pete, I realized, “This is what I want, to treat people with humanity.”

But why had I started behaving badly all of a sudden? Why did I have no idea about it, the impact it was having? And why did more people not tell me? Because pressure corrupts. I wasn’t a bad person. I was a boss behaving badly. But the worst part is I had no idea because power then insulates us. So, that would be a story where things did not go well.

Pete Mockaitis
I hear you. And, Sabina, I hate to bring you into, it sounds like, a genuinely traumatic experience for you. But for the question mark lingering of curiosity for our listeners, they got to know, what did you say to Zach?

Sabina Nawaz
It wasn’t just one thing. The problem was it was a whole stream of things, which sounded like a stream of being discounted and insulted to Zach. So, he was about to bring up a new idea, and I said, “Nope.” And not only did I say it, I had my hand out there, right almost at his face, going, “We don’t have time for that,” expletive. “We need to get going. Did you not hear me the first time? We are under a really tight timeline.”

So, my voice is elevated. I’m cursing. My hand is out there in front of his face. And then another, a little later in the meeting, Zach says, “It’s okay if you say no to this idea, but can I bring it up?” And I said, “Yes.” And he brought up another new idea, and I said, “No,” right away. No, “Thank you for thinking through ideas. What made you suggest this right now?” None of that.

So, it was this very abrupt, shutting-down action that I reacted to. I stopped thinking. I certainly wasn’t leading. I wasn’t even thinking, and I’m just reacting, reacting to my circumstances and the pressure in an inexcusable fashion. And, you know, of course, as I’m sure you’re aware, when managers treat employees badly, employees then go back to their office, not just crying, but they play video games or research shows that they even deliberately sabotage results.

Pete Mockaitis
Update their LinkedIn, take a look at the opportunities out there.

Sabina Nawaz
Yes, start a secret group chat about you.

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, sure. Yeah, and thank you for sharing that. What’s really intriguing here is that, I think we hear stories associated with bosses behaving badly in these ways. And I’m thinking about Walter Isaacson’s biography of Elon Musk, where he talks about demon mode, or, you know, tales of Steve Jobs, or any number of famous hard-charging executives. And I think what people often tend to assume is like, “Oh, that’s just their personality. That’s just their management style.”

And so, you’re posing something quite fresh, and it’s like, “Oh, no, perhaps we have a whole lot of humanity buried under there, and it’s these diabolical twins that is going to work on some of these people, and that’s why we see these behaviors manifesting.”

Sabina Nawaz
Absolutely. Absolutely. With very rare exceptions, just like there are no purely good people or purely bad people, we all have good behaviors and bad behaviors in us, there are no purely good bosses or bad bosses. It’s our reaction to the circumstances. That doesn’t mean it should take us off the hook, but it’s not inherent in our personalities.

Pete Mockaitis
Understood. Okay. Well, so then, by contrast, could you share with us a tale of someone who got the heads up and didn’t end up succumbing?

Sabina Nawaz
Well, I’ll share the tale of somebody who did succumb, then got the heads up, because that’s what usually happens. I come in; the feedback I’d gotten about this person was he was terrible to work with. He was a bully, people called him a thug, and much worse, words that I won’t use on your show. And we worked together.

Now, this guy, Adam, suffered from what many of my clients suffer from, where they think they’re successful because of some of these traits, not despite these. So, they become innocent saboteurs in their own fate and the fate of their organizations, and that was certainly the case for Adam. He made jokes because he thought that was encouraging people. He used sarcasm to motivate them. Of course, this was all coming across as bullying behavior.

Once he recognized that, so this is why I was saying the heads up comes after the fact often, because nobody wants to tell the person in a position of power what they think they don’t want to hear.

Pete Mockaitis
Yes, especially when they’re behaving in a way that says, “I might get my head ripped off for this.”

Sabina Nawaz
Exactly. “Who in their right mind is going to do that? Not only get my head ripped off, I might lose my job.” So, you continue on thinking you’re doing just fine, because, of course, people would give you feedback. You’ve asked for the feedback, haven’t you? Asking for feedback is a waste of time when you have high authority. You’ve got to deploy some other techniques.

And so, in Adam’s case, when I interviewed a bunch of his co-workers and got this devastating feedback, he did work to turn that around. By the way, I never experienced Adam as a bully or a jerk. I experienced him as a wonderful human being, because, of course, we didn’t have that power gap in our relationship through which everything gets filtered as more dire, more directed personally at us either.

And a year later, I interviewed people again, and then people said, “Oh, I was dreading having to work for him again. He’s so much more respectful. I trust him so much more. He is a thousand percent better.” So, that was a beautiful ending to that story.

Pete Mockaitis
Yes, indeed. Okay. So, well then, let’s dig into these particular truths that you shared. When we’re promoted, it’s the riskiest time in our career. Can you expand on that?

Sabina Nawaz
Well, of course, it’s also a time for celebration when you’re promoted, but once the bubbly settles, what you might realize is that the very strengths, the superpowers that have gotten you there, are now going to be seen in a very different light. So, for example, as a manager, you can say exactly the same things you said before, but now they’re going to take on a harsher light, a louder tone, a more personal note for the next that are craning up. Their views are less charitable.

Let me give you a couple of examples. Let’s say you are somebody who’s assiduous about details, how might you be seen as a manager?

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, a micromanager.

Sabina Nawaz
Yes, a micromanager. Let’s say you’re really calm under pressure, how might that come across?

Pete Mockaitis
You don’t care. You’re not invested.

Sabina Nawaz
Exactly. Ooh, we could keep going back and forth like this, but you get the idea. Strategic becomes manipulative. All of these things can be seen in a whole different light. You need to start to look at your strengths not from how you see them, but how they’re going to be seen from people below. The higher you go, the more that view gets distorted, like a funhouse mirror.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. And what do you recommend we do when we find ourselves in such a spot?

Sabina Nawaz
One of the first things you can do is, actually, inventory your strengths and start writing down ways in which others might describe it, and put yourself in those shoes. So, one of my direct reports, what would they say? One of my skip levels, what would they say? Somebody who’s a junior employee who reports to one of my peers? Somebody from the outside who now sees my bigger title? So, imagine those soundbites coming at you, and once you see that, you can start to temper things.

Somebody I worked with was very, very strategic, and she would take her time speaking up in meetings because she wanted to see where the thread of the conversation was going, who was speaking, who wasn’t speaking, what was the tone, what was the vibe of the meeting, and, people started thinking that she was very political instead of strategic. They said, “Oh, she’s going to go where the wind is blowing. She wants to see what people above her are saying,” and so on.

Once she recognized that piece of feedback, she went back to her team to explain to them what she was doing, “This is why I’m doing what I’m doing. I have a rule. I don’t speak up right away. And then let me show you, let me demonstrate to you how that has benefited. For example, I was going to go to this meeting and I went in with this particular point of view, but it wasn’t until I heard the third person speaking that I realized this point of view is actually incorrect and it’s going to antagonize, unintentionally, three people in that meeting. Wasn’t it better not to speak up first in that particular case?”

Pete Mockaitis
That’s handy. Okay. Well, so it sounds like the master keys there are just let’s get a sense of what is the perception and then let’s provide some context, some explanation. It’s funny, that takes humility on both sides of that there.

First, to put yourself in a position where you’re willing to hear it, and then, secondly, to explain it. Because you might say, if you were less humble, “I’m the boss. I don’t have to explain myself to these folks.” And yet, it seems that, in order to be a great manager, maybe you very well do, in fact, need to.

Sabina Nawaz
Absolutely. Absolutely. And if you’re a manager who has a “yeah, but” raging at the moment, saying, “Yeah, but I don’t have time to do it,” think about how much time you spend undoing things and that it would take a fraction of the time to do it instead.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. And you said simply asking for feedback doesn’t work. What’s the means by which we get to the truth?

Sabina Nawaz
Yes, this is really tough because here you have a boss who has no idea how they’re coming across, and an employee who’s not willing to tell you because of the fear that they have across this power gap. So, simply saying, “Hey, would you give me feedback when you notice something?” employees are going to say, “Yes, boss,” and all they’re going to give you is very mild stuff, cushioned in praise.

So, when they tell you everything is fine, what they’re actually meaning is, “Oh, what an ass.” So, you have no idea. So, first of all, any feedback you get, you might want to add a couple of numbers to it to upgrade the severity of what they’re saying. But here’s the other thing, you can actually ask more specific questions, because the quality of feedback you receive is directly proportional to the quality of the question you ask.

If you simply say, “How did I do in that presentation or that meeting?” people are going to say, “You were fantastic. In fact, you should get on the TED stage next week,” because that is not asking for feedback. That is simply asking for reassurance. Instead, if you said, “On a scale of 1 to 10, where was I?” Let’s say they say 8, which you know is going to actually mean a 6 or a 5.

Then you can say, “What would it take, what’s one thing I could do to get to a 9, to get to a plus 1? What’s one thing I did that worked well? What’s one thing I can do to get to a plus 1?” Don’t ask for too much feedback. If you cut it down to one thing, people are more likely to be able to give you something, and you’re more likely to be able to act on it.

One other way to ask for feedback is to externalize the ask. So, instead of saying, “Pete, what’s one thing I could do better at on this podcast?” I might say, “Pete, if you were to channel your most skeptical, your crustiest listener, what would they say about the one thing I could do better?” Now, Pete is freed up, it doesn’t impact our relationship. In fact, it looks like Pete is working for me by channeling some of his listeners.

Pete Mockaitis
You know, I like that a lot, especially when you’re the one asking for the feedback and you suggest the third-party voice. That seems like a real powerful combo. And I’m reminded of, well, some interviewers, I think John Stossel, in particular. He’s just always devil’s advocating, John Stossel. It’s like, “Well, some might say that this is just a means of bringing costs down, and that’s necessary.” He even has the voice, you know, which just cracks me up.

And so, it almost feels a little bit less than courageous when he says, “Hey, I’m not saying it, but it’s some third party,” which, at the same time, as an interviewer, can make your interviewee feel more comfortable, and so, you know, it works. But it’s even better to invite them to think about that third party.

Sabina Nawaz
Yes.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. Very good. Well, so then, in terms of, like, the asking, is this sort of in person, via survey, email, all of the above? What’s the mechanism of collection that you favor?

Sabina Nawaz
All of the above is great. I favor direct conversation, in-person or virtual, of course, these days, especially, but somewhere where we are making eye contact, looking at each other and having a live conversation because you can start to read the cues of the person who’s providing you with that feedback as well, and you can tone it down a little bit more.

You can make sure you’re conveying nonverbal feedback at all times, because they’re, of course, hyper-aware of any twitch that’s going on on your face, because they’re going to go, “Oh, my gosh, I’m fired.” So, it allows for more information to be exchanged as you’re doing this process. It also shows that you truly care. You’re willing to invest live time for it as opposed to a survey.

Pete Mockaitis
Yeah, okay. Well, thank you. Well, now let’s dig into a little bit the second thing you dropped there with regard to it’s not the power but the pressure that corrupts. Can you expand on that?

Sabina Nawaz
It’s just like when I had all that pressure in that job and I started acting out. So, by corrupting, I mean your behaviors change. Your behaviors change in a way that impact other people adversely. You raise your voice. You have a tone to your voice. You provide harsher criticism than necessary. You cut people off. You interrupt them. All of those things show up when you’re under pressure.

Now, of course, there’s not a single person on the planet who’s not under pressure both at work and outside of work. And I’m sure, Pete, that you have moments where you’ve been under pressure and you’ve done something you’re not proud of, and, gosh, it would be mortifying if that was caught on video and put up on YouTube or TikTok.

And so, it’s no different for bosses. The problem is that the higher we go, the more pressure we have on us, and the more likely we are that one of those is going to subvert our actions and take over.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. So, then when we are in that spot where we are feeling the pressure, what are the best practices to not being a jerk?

Sabina Nawaz
The first thing is to just shut up, and I have this term called your shut-up muscle. And as a manager, it becomes important to buff up your shut-up muscle. So, there’s a shut-up exercise which has many steps, but a couple of those. First of all, be, at least, the third person to speak. There’s no reason for you to jump in the minute somebody asks a question.

All you’re doing there is training everyone to become over-reliant on you and take the back seat, be lazy, or not grow, or feel disempowered on the other side. So, be the third or later to speak. That would be one way to exercise your shut-up muscle.

Another, when you’re on video calls, put yourself on mute by default. So, when you have that fast twitch desire to speak, you can speak, and people are going to go, “Oh, you’re on mute.” And by the time you unmute, you can go, “Oh, actually, that train has passed. I’m good.” It gives your brain a moment to get out of that reactive mode and get back to your senses to be more strategic, and say, “Do I really need to say this thing? Not really.”

Pete Mockaitis
Yeah, that’s great. The shut-up muscle, that’s really good, because sometimes, in my experience, I am quick to speak because I’m excited, it’s like, “Oh, oh, that thing that you said. Also, this!” And so, I can see what you’re saying when you compare it to a muscle, is it takes some discipline, some restraint, some strength to say, “Yes, I’m very excited. And I can share that in 90 seconds, if it still seems valuable then, and that’s okay.”

Sabina Nawaz
And that’s another key piece, if it still feels valuable then. Another tool for the shut-up muscle is to take margin notes. That is, you’ve got your notepad, and, then in the margin, write down all of your ideas that you’re so excited about, that are getting in the way of you being fully present and likely to cause you to interrupt other people.

If you wait for a while, let’s say you have five notes in your margin, three of those might be suggested by somebody else. That’s great. That means that they’re taking initiative. They’re going to start working harder than you for a change and reduce some of the pressure on you. And the two things that haven’t been said, maybe only one of them needs to be said.

Now you’re going to have a lot more impact because you’ve gotten rid of what I call a communication fault line, which is verbal overkill. If you have just one thing to share and that one thing is shared just by you, it’s not an idea other people thought about, that’s a way you can truly add value in a meeting.

Pete Mockaitis
Lovely. And can we hear about the power blinding us?

Sabina Nawaz
Well, it’s the part about “Who wants to get their head bitten off?” And also, with power comes the, well, power to take away or give things to other people that matter to them: a raise, a promotion, their very jobs. As a result, people are not going to say things to you that they think will displease you and that don’t feel safe. So, as a result, you’re cushioned by people who are saying yes all the time, cushioned by a lot of praise.

A CEO I worked with, it was the day before their CEO ship was going to get announced, and they said, “You know what, tomorrow I’m going to become the funniest person in this company,” because your jokes suddenly are funny, your ideas suddenly are brilliant. So, you get blind to what else might be going on.

Pete Mockaitis
And what shall we do in that scenario?

Sabina Nawaz
The end of the book has an assessment of 40-plus questions called “360 Yourself,” and it looks at every power gap, every kind of power gap and every kind of pressure pitfall you can fall into, and ask you a few questions to say, “Which of these do you fall into the most?” If you don’t have time, 15 minutes or so, to look at those 40 questions, think about these few.

One, you never receive pushback or different ideas once you’ve shared your idea. That might mean you’re in one of those blind power traps. People think you’re funnier, smarter, faster than you know you are. You justify all of your actions with a “yeah, but.” All of these so you can self-diagnose, “Hmm, yep, that’s happened, that’s never happened, this always happens, therefore, it must mean I’m surrounded in my own echo chamber.”

Pete Mockaitis
Okay, good to know. Well, Sabina, tell me, any other top do’s and don’ts you want to make sure to mention before we hear about some of your favorite things?

Sabina Nawaz
Because pressure corrupts, and it’s so important to allow pressure to help you shine, like we sometimes do, you know, when we have that deadline and we’re at our most creative, we want pressure to fuel us, not eviscerate us. Our tendency when we get into pressure-full situations is to work harder, to hunker down.

So, my favorite strategy here is to employ what I call blank space, which is actually do nothing. It’s two hours a week, back-to-back, that you schedule to unplug. No reading, no online presence, no conversations. You simply sit and think. And if that’s too much for you, do it in baby steps. Start with 15 minutes or even 5 minutes or 30 seconds. We are human beings, not human doings, but we’re very uncomfortable just being.

Those clients who have taken that time to do blank space have had transformational results. They’ve transformed their companies, they’ve averted disaster from the competition, they’ve even changed their careers completely. It’s a game changer. It takes the calendar management discipline to actually take that time. And then you can do a variety of different things to make use of that time.

You could simply do nothing. You could go for a walk. You could lie in a hammock. These are all things people have done that have worked with me. You could doodle, mind map, draw pictures, whatever, because research shows that our best insights come when we switch off this very busy working part of our brain, right? We’re in the shower. We’re running. We’re commuting. Those are the times where those answers come.

So, when you’re under pressure, thinking, “I’m such a loser. When am I going to get fired? I’ve got to double down,” stop and do nothing and trust that you already know the answer. All you have to do is let the noise die down so that the signal becomes amplified.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. So then, it sounds like there’s a variety of things that are acceptable during doing-nothing time, but what’s not okay is talking to other people or engaging with our digital devices.

Sabina Nawaz
Exactly.

Pete Mockaitis
So, you can walk, you can lie, you can sit, you can have a notebook, and then just roll with it.

Sabina Nawaz
Yes, exactly. Exactly.

Pete Mockaitis
Understood. And then, in so doing, that’s when these brilliant, transformational, creative ideas just emerge. It’s during the do-nothing time, or is it after the do-nothing time? Or is it both?

Sabina Nawaz
Both. Sometimes you come back, I had somebody who had a near panic attack before his first blank-space time, like, “What do you mean? Tell me again. I’m supposed to do nothing? Nothing at all? How is that going to work?” I said, “Just trust me. Just go do it.” He came back, he’s like, “Nothing happened.” I said, “Well, you know, at least your brain was better rested.” Guess what? After three blank space states, magic started happening. So, it might take a while, or it might be instantaneous.

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

Sabina Nawaz
My favorite quote is from the author who wrote The Little Prince, and I cannot pronounce his name. And it says something to the effect that perfection is not when there’s nothing more to add, but when there’s nothing more to take away.

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

Sabina Nawaz
It would be the one I referenced earlier, which is when employees are treated badly, they deliberately sabotage results. Now think about that, Pete. That means they’re screwing themselves over just to diss the boss. And I read about this in a book by Bob Sutton called The No Asshole Rule.

Pete Mockaitis
Yes, we had Bob on the show. And a favorite book?

Sabina Nawaz
I am not monogamous in favorite books, and so it shifts quite a bit. Currently, my favorite book is Martyr by Akbar Kaveh.

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

Sabina Nawaz
I use the Pomodoro technique often, which is setting a timer for 25 minutes and using that as focus time so I’m not monkeying around with every little distraction that comes along.

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

Sabina Nawaz
The one they quote back is actually the shut up, shut up more, and sense more as a result. Say less, sense more. Sense more what is going on because no one else is going to tell you.

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

Sabina Nawaz
Take one thing that you’re going to do to improve, and you already know what that is. Everybody does. In fact, you have probably a list of a dozen things. Break it down into the smallest, most ridiculously small unit and do it every day as a micro habit.

So, if you are going to be awesome at your job by being a better listener, once a day, your job would be to paraphrase somebody, or, for five minutes a day, to detach yourself from your phone, leave your phone in another room.

If you’re going to be awesome at your job through better health and well-being, instead of thinking you’re going to go to the gym for 30 minutes a day, do one push-up a day. That’s what a micro-habit is

Pete Mockaitis
All right. Sabina, thank you.

Sabina Nawaz
Thank you, Pete.