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KF #29. Demonstrates Self-Awareness Archives - Page 17 of 23 - How to be Awesome at Your Job

Apr 15
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426: How to Feel Limitless in Your Career with Laura Gassner Otting

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Laura Gassner Otting says: "Everybody, regardless of how extremely happy they seem, feels like something's missing."

Laura Gassner Otting charts how one can be limitless by freeing yourself from other people’s expectations.

You’ll Learn:

  1. The danger in carrying someone else’s “scorecard” of expectations
  2. What limitlessness looks and feels like
  3. Why to view purpose more broadly

About Laura

Laura speaks with change agents, entrepreneurs, investors, leaders, and donors to get them past the doubt and indecision that consign their great ideas to limbo. She delivers strategic thinking, well-honed wisdom, and catalytic perspective informed by decades of navigating change across the start-up, nonprofit, political, and philanthropic landscapes. She’s had boatloads of cool experience, from being a White House presidential appointee to founding her own organizations.

Items Mentioned in this Show:

Laura Gassner Otting Interview Transcript

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

Laura Gassner Otting
Thank you so much. This is such a better podcast than the How to Suck at Your Job podcast.

Pete Mockaitis
Yeah, that one sort of petered out pretty quickly. Well, I’m excited to dig into this stuff. I want to hear a fun fact about you. You mentioned that your first mile that you ran in life occurred when you were age 39. What’s the story here?

Laura Gassner Otting
Yeah. I was that kid in gym class growing up that had 497,623 excuses not to go to PE. I’m old. I’m 48 years old. There was a time in my life when PE was all those stereotypical things that you see like in the 1980’s dramas about the terrible coaches with their whistles and their polyester shorts. I was the one cowering in the corner. I was just never athletic. I went to computer sleep away camp, like for real, in the Poconos.

Pete Mockaitis
I also went to cyber camp.

Laura Gassner Otting
Did you really?

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, but the Poconos, that’s awesome. I was just in Central Illinois.

Laura Gassner Otting
Wow. I’ve never met another human being who actually talked to other human beings, who went to computer sleep away camp. This is amazing.

Pete Mockaitis
It was fun. It was fun.

Laura Gassner Otting
We could have a whole podcast just on that. I mean I was the only girl at computer sleep away camp and I still didn’t kiss a boy until I went to college. I was special. I didn’t run a mile. I lived the life of the mind. I was super nerd. I was never heavy. I was never thin. I was just kind of there.

When I was 39 year old, I was walking into my kids’ school one afternoon for some parent-teacher conference or something and I saw the head of the school. I was like, “Ellen, you look amazing.” Ellen was in her mid-60s and she had lost a ton of weight.

I was like, “Either you’ve been really sick or there’s a new man in your life. Frankly, you look way too good to have been really sick, so what’s his name?” She’s like, “Well, actually, there is a new man in my life. His name is Mike, Coach Mike.”

Then Ellen proceeds to drag me to the dirtiest, nastiest, filled with all sorts of dust and dead bugs, gym in a Boys & Girls Club, where I do bootcamp. It takes me six weeks to actually run the mile that you have to run at the end of bootcamp without stopping or barfing.

When I got to the end of the mile, I was like, “I’m going to do this. This is amazing. What if I strung 3.1 of these together and I ran a 5K?” So I signed up for a 5K and 6 weeks later me and Ellen and Coach Mike all ran a 5K. At the end of the 5K, I thought “What if I ran a 10K?” At the end of the 10K I thought “What if I did half marathon? That would be amazing.” At the end of the half marathon, I thought, “I live in Boston. I should do the Boston marathon.”

I came home and I told my husband that I was thinking about doing the Boston marathon. He told me I was insane. But I said “If I can get a bib in the next five minutes, would you support me?” Now you have to run Boston as a qualified runner. You have to be fast. I am not fast, again, see computer sleep-away camp, right?

But what I did was I spent the last 20 years working with nonprofits and I knew a lot of people who had charity bibs, so I posted on Facebook, “Hey, anybody have a nonprofit bib that I can raise money for to run the Boston marathon?” Within three minutes I had five offers. I turned to my husband and I showed him my iPhone screen with the offers and he was like, “Oh God, you’re doing this.” At 39 years old I ran my first mile and by the time I was 41, I had run three marathons.

Pete Mockaitis
That’s awesome. Well, congratulations. Impressive.

Laura Gassner Otting
Thank you. Well, it’s kind of crazy actually, but what that taught me, it taught me where confidence comes from. Confidence doesn’t come from this idea of dreaming big dreams. It comes from competence. You put one foot in front of the other. You don’t crap your pants and the next thing you know you’ve done something. That something leads you to confidence that you can do something else.

I never thought I’m going to run a marathon, let alone three, I thought I’m going to run and see where that takes me.

Pete Mockaitis
That’s beautiful. That’s beautiful. Well, I’m excited. It sounds like you followed some of the advice in your book, Limitless: How to Ignore Everybody, Carve Your Own Path, and Live Your Best Life. You did some ignoring. Tell me, just maybe to get us going, what’s perhaps the most surprising and fascinating discovery that you made as you were researching and putting this one together?

Laura Gassner Otting
Well, I would say the most fascinating discovery that I made is that everybody, regardless of how externally happy they seem, feels like something’s missing. I was really surprised at how broad the range was for the book. I knew that it made sense because it made sense to me and I’ve been talking about this advice that’s in the book for the last 20 years.

But I was giving a talk at a conference, a retreat that is specifically for young women of color that work in the education space, Millennials working in the education space. It’s a retreat that’s run by a friend of mine. I’m the only Caucasian person that she’s had come speak at this conference because she knows that I hold the space sacred.

I was giving my usual talk about how do you find your leadership voice and how do you find confidence. Somebody asked me a question. I said, “Let me answer that by telling you a little bit about this book that I’m writing.” I gave the framework for the book.

At the end of it these 60 women in this room, these Millennial women of color, stood up and gave me a standing ovation, the first standing ovation of my life. I was so shocked by that that I was like maybe there’s something to it.

Then I started using this framework in my executive coaching practice, where I was talking to middle-aged white guys and stay-at-home moms and Boomers that are looking for the next encore in their retirement. I started hearing people saying things like, “I feel like you wrote this just for me.”

Then you fast-forward to when I recorded my audio book and the sound technician is this guy who is a personal trainer slash thresh hair-metal guitarist slash sound technician. Afterwards, I walked out of the two days and he turned to me he said, “I feel like the universe brought you into my life at exactly the right moment. I don’t believe in that universe crap, but I really needed to hear this.”

The most surprising thing to me was how universal the idea of feeling like we’re all limited by everybody else’s expectations and everybody else’s idea of success and how much people felt relieved to be unburdened by that.

Pete Mockaitis
Beautiful. Okay, that’s quite a statement there. Let’s hear it again. We all, universally, tend to feel limited by other’s expectations and what?

Laura Gassner Otting
Everybody assigns ideas to us. We’re all walking around with a scorecard in our pocket. Marry the right person, go to the right college, get the right job, buy the right house. Who’s defining what the right whatever is?

We’re all walking with a scorecard of other people’s ideas, other people’s expectations of success. When we do that, we’re so limited by everybody else’s ideas, by their expectations, by their definitions, frankly, by their anxiety, by their concerns, by their worry that we become limited. It’s in these limits that we lose ourselves.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, yeah, it’s funny. I already feel a little bit liberated just hearing yeah, why do I care at all what some of these people think about this or that?

Laura Gassner Otting
Yeah. Where did you get your scorecard from? For me, when I was in fourth grade a teacher said, “You’re a pretty argumentative young woman. You should be a lawyer.” Of course I told her she was wrong, but I then spent the next 15 years creating an educational path that put me towards being a lawyer.

When I got to law school and said “I actually hate this. I’m in totally the wrong place,” and I wanted to drop out, I felt like I was failing because this definition of what success would be, go to law school, become a lawyer, suddenly wasn’t right for me. I never stopped to think, “Well, is it actually something I care about?”

What’s worse is that we’re asked to pick these paths, we’re asked to pick the direction, the college, the major, the career, the trade, whatever it is that we’re doing, we’re asked to pick these things when we’re 16-, 17-, 18-years old. You know what you don’t have when you’re 16-, 17-, 18-years old? A frontal lobe.

Pete Mockaitis
I was going to say, boy, there’s lots of things. Perspective. A frontal lobe, all right.

Laura Gassner Otting
Right. Yeah, you don’t have perspective. You don’t have wisdom. You don’t have knowledge. You don’t have reference. You don’t have many things. But most importantly, you don’t have a frontal lobe. The frontal lobe is the part of your brain that determines logical decision making. We’re asked to make a decision about who we are and what we want to be when a) we don’t even really know ourselves, and b) we literally don’t have the capacity to make this decision.

Pete Mockaitis
Yeah, okay. That’s really thought provoking. Give us some examples here in terms of continual I guess limits or expectations that seem to be extra universal and extra limiting in terms of the biggies.

Laura Gassner Otting
Yeah. There’s the teacher when you’re growing up who says, “You should be this,” or “You should be that.” A teacher has no crystal ball. They have no Ouija board. Maybe they’ve said something as an aside on some random day and we take it as definitional.

Or maybe it’s a parent or a grandparent, who after I dropped out of law school and found myself in Washington DC, the definition of success came to me in the form of a six-foot-two nice medical student named Allen, who my mom thought was going to be the answer to all of my prayers. That was definition of success for her was get married to a nice Jewish doctor.

Now, that wasn’t my definition of success because every time I kissed Allen all I could think of was milk, butter, eggs, cheese, I’ve got to pick up the dry cleaning, got to bring the dog to the groomer. There was no spark. My mother would say, “Oh, well, you just have to concentrate.” That wasn’t my definition of success, but it was put on me by somebody else. Get married, check that box.

Then you fast forward to the boss. You’re sitting in your office in your workplace and you’re thinking about how you’re going to solve a certain problem for a client or to do some project in a way that you think makes sense, but your boss is over there thinking well, you’ve got to get done as fast as possible, as expediently as you can with the biggest profit margin that’s here. It may not feel like it’s real for you.

Throughout my book, I talk about lots of different people who at different points in their career made a major change in order to feel like they were in consonance with who they were. That was a theme that came up over and over and over again, where people were like, “When my boss was saying ‘Just do it. Just make sure it’s good enough. Just do it until the check clears. That’s all you need to do.’ That didn’t sit right with who I am as a person.”

I think this sort of young definition, the sort of external pressure to have the rest of your life in order, and then a boss who might have different ideas of what success means than you do are pretty universal.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, so by contrast, could you paint a picture for what does it look, sound, feel like in practice when you are indeed limitless, you have managed to let go of those things?

Laura Gassner Otting
I want you to think about a time when you were firing on all cylinders, you were at your very best, you were making it rain, you were closing a deal, you were just giving a presentation of your life or maybe it was a quiet moment with a loved one or a colleague going through a difficult situation or you were working behind the scenes to kind of put the analysis together for a product launch or a budget or something.

It could be loud. It could be quiet. It could be public. It could be private. But think about a moment like that. You’ve had those moments where you are absolutely 100% everything that you do well is being put towards the problem at hand. Can you think about one of those moments?

Pete Mockaitis
Sure thing. Yeah.

Laura Gassner Otting
How did that feel?

Pete Mockaitis
Well, it’s good. I want to get a better word for you though.

Laura Gassner Otting
It’s limitless.

Pete Mockaitis
You’re saying that feeling is the limitless feeling?

Laura Gassner Otting
Yeah, the feeling that the what you do matches who you are so that the very best of who are is being brought towards something that you care about. It’s this frictionless belonging. It’s this momentum. It’s when you feel like you have wind in your sails. It’s when everything is in alignment and in flow and it just feels right. That’s what it feels like to be limitless.

For some people that comes in the form of staying at home and raising their family, even though they have two master’s degrees. For some it comes from getting away from those kids as fast as possible and going back to work on the day that you can. It’s going to look very different for everybody. At every age and at every life stage, we’re all going to define what that success means differently.

Pete Mockaitis
That’s cool. Now, you sort of unpack that into a bit of detail in terms of how you get there. I’d first maybe want to talk about when you feel like you’ve got the hooks of limit and expectation from another source in you and you’d rather it not be in you, what do you do to find some freedom?

Laura Gassner Otting
Well, I want to say that it can be difficult because we all have sort of expectations of other people that we have to fulfill. But I think we put a lot of those on ourselves. I think that we think that other people will be deeply disappointed and upset if we change what we’re doing.

I think the first thing that I tell people is in the course of 20 years of interviewing people at the top of their game while I was doing executive search, I never found somebody who didn’t make a left turn or a right turn or a U-turn. Everybody changes what they do at some point. They redefine themselves and they rebuild.

Now, there may be plenty of people not at the top of their game who don’t do that, but everybody that I ever met who was truly a leader was somebody who learned along the way and made adjustments and who saw failure as fulcrum and not finale.

Now, I was speaking a few weeks ago in Austin. I was talking about this idea of failure being a fulcrum and not finale. I turned to my left and there is sitting in the front row an astronaut, Commander Tim Kopra, who had been on not one, not two, but three space walks. In the middle of doing this bit and I was like, “Oh, except for you, sir. For you failure would most definitely be finale, but for the rest of the 400 people in this room, failure is absolutely fulcrum.”

I think the first thing for people to do is to let go of this idea that failure is bad, that failure is going to be something that kills us. If failure literally doesn’t kill you, if there’s still breath left in your body, you can learn from it and do something else.

Once we let go of this desperate need to please everybody else and to live into everybody else’s idea of success, once we decide that it’s okay to fail at living into their expectations, that’s when we start making room for own idea of success. Once we start thinking about what success can mean to us—and I break that out in this framework in the book—once we unpack what success actually means to us, then success can in fact equal happiness.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay, that’s good. You talk about this concept of consonance and have a few particular drivers of it. Can you define these terms for us?

Laura Gassner Otting
Yeah. What I started to notice throughout my executive search career is that even though I was interviewing people, as I said, who were at the top of their game and who were super successful, they weren’t all really happy. I was struck by this idea that after you filled in all the checkboxes and you’ve done all the right things, why do we still feel empty? Why do we still feel like there’s something that’s missing that we’re just not quite satisfied about?

What I started to notice was that the people who were the most successful and also the happiest, the ones who weren’t suffering from burnout and stress and fatigue, they were the ones who were in consonance. They were the ones who were in alignment and flow so that everything they did made sense.

I started to notice that they had really four things. Each of them had these four things in different amounts, but they had them in the amounts that they needed.

The first is calling. Calling is some gravitational force, something that’s bigger than you. It could be saving the whales and curing cancer and feeding the poor. That’s fine. But it can also be working for a leader who inspires you or a company whose brain is prestigious and interests you.

It can be getting out of debt. It can be buying a Maserati and a beach house. It can be building your own business. It can be staying home with your family. Whatever that calling is, it’s your calling.

I think we get calling wrong often because we tend to give votes to people who shouldn’t have them. We have all these people in our lives and we ask them what they think and what we should do and they reply to us based on the framework of their own thinking, so we’re giving votes to people who shouldn’t even have voices. That’s calling.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay.

Laura Gassner Otting
The second piece is connection. Connection really answers the question “What if you didn’t go to work tomorrow? What if you didn’t get out of bed tomorrow? Would anybody notice? Would it matter? Does your work matter? Why do you, in this box, in this organizational chart, in this company at this moment, why do you matter?” Can you see the work that you’re doing connecting to solving that calling, to getting to that calling that you want to achieve?

The third piece is contribution. While connection is all about the work, contribution is really all about you. We all want our work to mean something, to contribute something to our lives, but what? Does the work contribute to the career trajectory and velocity you’d like to create? Does the work contribute to the lifestyle you’d like to live? Does the work contribute to your ability to manifest your values into the world on a daily basis?

Then lastly, is control. Control really is how much personal agency do you want and need in your life so that the work can connect and that it can contribute to the kind of calling that you want to serve. At every age and every life stage, we’re going to want and need and have the four C’s of calling, connection, contribution, and control in different amounts.

Pete Mockaitis
You mentioned different amounts. I think I want all of them and a lot of them. Are you suggesting that there’s tradeoffs between them or how do you think about that?

Laura Gassner Otting
I think there are sometimes tradeoffs. I think it is possible to want and have lots of all of them. But I think at different ages and at different life stages, we’re willing to sacrifice one for the other.

When I was 21 years old and worth my weight in Ramen soup and idealism, I was volunteering on a presidential campaign. I had all the calling in the world. I was so inspired by this leader. But connection, please, I was goffering coffee, I was making Xerox copies. My work didn’t connect whatsoever, nothing I did really mattered. There were 700 other volunteers ready to walk in the door just like me.

But that was okay because I had so much contribution. I was manifesting my values on a daily basis. While I wasn’t really earning any money – I was, like I said, worth my weight in Ramen soup – I knew that if this guy won, I could have a pretty interesting job. Talk about a career trajectory. That would be amazing.

Then you go to control. Clearly, I had no control whatsoever about how much connection the work had or how much contribution it had, but boy, it didn’t matter to me because calling and contribution were absolutely top of what I needed when I was young and I didn’t have a family or major bills to pay and I could live in squalor and be perfectly fine.

Now as I’m 48 years old, it’s a little bit of a different story. Calling, I really do want to continue to do good things in the world, but my calling right now is really building out this book launch and bringing my message to people.

I feel that deeply, which means that my connection because I’m on several non-profit boards, because I’ve got two teenage kids, because I’ve got a husband with a completely inflexible job and I have friends that live all over the world, I could be doing lots of other things with my time.

If the work that I’m doing, if the podcast that I’m on, if the speaking that I’m doing, if the research I’m doing, the writing I’m doing isn’t helping me get this book off the ground in a way that is supporting my speaking career, then it’s not interesting to me. I really deeply need my work to be connected.

In terms of contribution, I am able to bring tons of how I manifest my values in the work because clearly I talk about them nonstop. I’m getting a piece of that, but in terms of how this is going to create a career trajectory for me, I have no idea. This is a brand new career and it’s super fascinating. I’m weighing those things differently.

Then in terms of control, I’m an entrepreneur deep in my soul, so I absolutely have to have control over the connection and the contribution, but I’m also willing to give up a little bit of it right now because I’m just sort of on this – I’m on this momentum path to get this book launch going. It’s very different for me right now.

If I were 68 years old, it may be a totally different thing because I may say I couldn’t care less whether or not the work I’m doing really matters or it contributes, but I deeply care about changing the world because I was born in 1940s or the 1950s and I’m a kid of social justice and those things I care most about.

I think everybody at different ages and at different life stages will care about these things differently, but I think we get into trouble because we sort of set our scorecard in stone early on and we’re told to think about the value of the job, but we don’t think about the value of the job to us individually and we don’t let that flex and change.

Pete Mockaitis
Understood. I’m curious then, when it comes to all the means by which you can discover and develop and bring about some more calling, connection, contribution, and control are there any particular practices that you’ve seen again and again really seem to make a really big impact in terms of bringing about more of the consonance?

Laura Gassner Otting
I put together a quiz at LimitlessAssessment.com. I’ll say that again, LimitlessAssessment.com, where your listeners can actually go and take. It’s about 60 questions or so. It takes about 10 or 15 minutes. It walks the respondent through each of the four C’s of calling, connection, contribution, and control.

At the end of which, it gives them this very pretty little radar chart that – go computer sleep away camp because I’m very proud of myself for learning how to build this. It gives this beautiful radar chart that shows one circle of each of the four C’s how much you have in your life and then another one overlapped, we hope, of each of the four C’s of what you want in your life.

It actually will show you visually where you’re out of consonance and give you some tips about things that you need to do. For everyone it’s going to be a little bit different, but I think the right first moves, first of all, go take the quiz. Absolutely it will tell you exactly what you’re looking for and not just what society wants you to have, but what you actually want to have and how to get there.

But the second thing is to really start pulling the people around you, I call them your ‘framily,’ it’s the sort of combination of your friends and your family, who can be your tribe, who can be the ones who you can talk to about your results of the quiz, about the things that you want, about what you might think are missing, and really sort of help reflect to you and hold you accountable to making sure that you’re doing something every day towards the change that you want to make.

Pete Mockaitis
Very cool. Maybe just to wet the whistle and get an example there. If we want some more control, what are some great things to do that help bring that about?

Laura Gassner Otting
As I mentioned, I’m an entrepreneur. I think that most of the entrepreneurs who I’ve seen who have taken this quiz have found that they are very much in consonance in the control piece because I think they’ve made very specific decisions in their life to make that happen.

I profile a woman by the name of Terry Diab in my book. She is a carpenter by trade. She actually started working for her brother-in-law when she was very young. She would just follow all the other carpenters around on the job site, picking up nails and cleaning paintbrushes and anything that they asked them to do. She loved it. She absolutely loved the work. She went to go work for him.

She was having a great time doing it. The work was done. He would say to her, “If you leave at the end of the day and you don’t feel proud of work, you’ve got to go back and do it again. This is really important.”

Then as his business grew and grew and grew, she found that that ethos, that respect for getting the job done well wasn’t actually shared with all of the site managers that he hired. She found herself increasingly frustrated because she thought that the work could be done better and should be done better and that the clients deserved better, so she started her own thing.

She says that she ate barbecue sauce and mashed potatoes for months in order to be able to afford to continue to put money towards building out her business, but she’s now booked 12 months in advance all the time. Her dance card’s always full.

She absolutely has 100% control over the way that she does her work, the quality that she does it, the way that she can manifest her values through her work and how much money she makes or doesn’t make by how much work she decides to take on.

Pete Mockaitis
That’s awesome. Cool. Thank you. Well, I’d also love to get your take when folks are saying, “You know, Laura, I love this. I’m right on. I want to get more limitless. I want more consonance. What’s one of the biggest mistakes that people end up making when they are going after this stuff?

Laura Gassner Otting
I would say the number one biggest mistake that people make is that they say, “I want more consonance, I want my work to have meaning,” and then they say, “Well, meaning has to have purpose and purpose has to be purpose like higher purpose, lofty purpose.”

And they assign these ideas to it, which are either “Well, I actually want to make money, so I don’t really want to go do that purpose thing or maybe I’ll do that purpose thing later or I don’t know if that purpose thing is for me.” Again, I spent 20 years helping people find work in purpose, in nonprofit jobs. What I’ll say is that it’s really great to go do that work, but it’s also not necessarily right for everyone.

What I’m trying to say is that the only person who gets to decide what your purpose is, is you.

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

Laura Gassner Otting
Oh, so my favorite quote, I always have to go to Eleanor Roosevelt, which is, “Do the thing you think you cannot do.” I think that we all have multitudes inside of us. I never thought I was an athlete. We started this conversation by talking about my first mile at 39.

Here’s the thing that happens when you run three marathons in three years having never run a mile before is that you tend to get a little beaten up. I went from running a marathon to going to a gym, joining a gym for the first time in my life and meeting a trainer and lifting weight. This trainer happened to be a guy who was training for an Olympic rowing campaign. He kept talking about rowing. I was like, “Oh, that sound interesting. I should check that out.”

Fast forward a few years and now I’m a competitive rower. I row at a local competitive women’s rowing team. Every time we’re on the water, the coach comes over in his little boat and he’s like, “Okay, athletes, here’s what we’re going to do now.” I’m always like, “Athletes. He called me an athlete. That’s hilarious.” But I never knew that that’s who I was.

I think if we continue to do things that we think we cannot do, we’re able to find multitudes within us and we’re able to surprise ourselves at just what we can become.

Pete Mockaitis
How about a favorite study or experiment or bit of research?

Laura Gassner Otting
Well, I think the marshmallow test is fascinating. Do you know the marshmallow test?

Pete Mockaitis
Oh yeah.

Laura Gassner Otting
Yeah. I have two teenage boys, so we live the marshmallow test in our house all the time. But this idea that sometimes if you can wait – and sometimes it’s sacrificing the easy win now for the thing that you really want later. You don’t have the one marshmallow that you can have now, if you wait five minutes, you get two.

I think that that’s what I saw so many times in my career in executive search that the people who had tenacity and grit and hunger and speed and weight, these were the things that I looked for in people. I’ll be darned if I didn’t have 100% marshmallow test winners in the people that I placed in these CEO positions.

Pete Mockaitis
That’s good. How about a favorite book?

Laura Gassner Otting
This is kind of weird, but my favorite book – I think the one that was one of the most impactful books for me is this book called Stones from the River by woman by the name of Ursula Hiegi, H-I-E-G-I. It’s a little bit of a weird book.

It’s a fiction book that was set in World War II. It’s about a dwarf named Trudy Montag. Trudy, because she was atypical, was pretty much ignored by everybody and dismissed by everybody, so she would be sort of present for lots of conversations, where people just forgot she was there because they didn’t think of her as a full human being.

Because of it in the story she gets to hear all of these state secrets and she gets to sort of infiltrate the Nazis and she’s able to work with the resistance and help them to topple the Nazis. Again, it’s a fiction book, but just help them topple the Nazis in World War Ii, but I love the idea that we are not just who everybody sees us as and that we have so much inside of us that we can be that people don’t even yet know about and we’re the ones who get to decide our stories.

Pete Mockaitis
How about a favorite tool, something that helps you be awesome at your job?

Laura Gassner Otting
Delegating. I am a firm believer that I am not the best person at everything and that there are things where I really do truly kick ass and that if I don’t hire people to do the stuff that I suck at, then I never get to spend the time doing the stuff where I can kick ass.

Pete Mockaitis
How about a favorite habit?

Laura Gassner Otting
Every night before I go to bed, I look at my schedule for the next day. I cannot sleep well if I don’t when I have to shower the next day. That’s sort of a strange way to put it, but as an entrepreneur, somebody who works from my home, there are days that are yoga pant days and there are days that are stiletto heel days.

If I don’t know exactly when I need to be show pony ready, ready for public consumption, I have a very hard time having gravitational force in my world. Before I go to bed every night, I just scan through my next day and I just figure out when I’m going to shower.

Pete Mockaitis
Lovely. It’s so funny because some days I don’t make it in the shower. If I had a ritual, there’d probably be more consistency.

Laura Gassner Otting
Yeah, those days where you wake up and you put on your exercise clothes but you never quite exercise because you didn’t put it in your calendar. If it’s not on my calendar, it doesn’t exist in the world. I literally have on my calendar the days where I have to pick up my kids from school because I will forget because I don’t pick them up every day. Maybe I just smoked too much weed in college, but I can’t remember anything unless it’s on my calendar.

The calendar is really – I’m not one of those people who lives and dies by my inbox. That doesn’t take over. I don’t feel this need to answer every email I get every minute of the day as soon as I get it, but I need to have a roadmap. For me, the calendar is the thing.

Pete Mockaitis
Is there a particular nugget you share that really seems to connect and resonate with your audience and you hear it quoted back to you frequently?

Laura Gassner Otting
Yeah, I think one of the things that gets quoted back to me most is a quote that I said about a year ago on stage, where I was kind of railing about this vacation that I was about to take and I posted something on Facebook asking for tips, “Does anybody know anything about,” wherever it was that I was going.

Somebody wrote back, “I’m so glad you’re going on this vacation. You deserve it.” I remember thinking I don’t deserve it. I earned that, baby. I don’t deserve it. I said if I waited around my entire life for all the things I deserved, I would never get what I demanded.

Pete Mockaitis
All right.

Laura Gassner Otting
That gets quoted back to me a lot.

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

Laura Gassner Otting
I am all over the socials at HeyLGO. It’s Hey Laura Gassner Otting, so HeyLGO. HeyLGO.com is how you can find me on my website. The book is Limitless: How to Ignore Everybody, Carve Your Own Path, and Live Your Best Life. It’s on Amazon.com, Barnes & Noble, anywhere fine books are sold. The quiz is at LimitlessAssessment.com.

Pete Mockaitis
Do you have a final challenge or call to action for folks seeking to be awesome at their jobs?

Laura Gassner Otting
I would ask people three questions. Number one, what would it feel like to be limitless in your job? Number two, what do you need to change in order to get there? Number three, what would be the cost if you don’t?

Pete Mockaitis
Laura, this has been a treat. Thanks so much. I wish you lots of luck with the book, Limitless, and all your adventures.

Laura Gassner Otting
Thank you so much. It’s been great fun.

Apr 12
0

425: Achieving More by Constantly Embarrassing Yourself with Case Kenny

By | Podcasts | No Comments

 

 

Case Kenny says: "The most happy, fulfilled, creative, successful people I know are constantly embarrassing themselves."

Case Kenny shares his bro-tastic approaches to building confidence, achievement, and motivation.

You’ll Learn:

  1. How doing embarrassing things increases confidence
  2. How to balance striving with gratitude
  3. Two common motivational mistakes

About Case

Case Kenny is the Founder and Editor-in-Chief of PRSUIT.com and the host of the iTunes top podcast New Mindset, Who Dis?

Items Mentioned in this Show:

Case Kenny Interview Transcript

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

Case Kenny
Yeah, thank you. Thanks for having me. Very excited.

Pete Mockaits
Well, I think we’ve got so much fun stuff to dig into when it comes to motivation and learning and personal development. We’re both total dorks for this. First, I’ll put you on the spot. I want to know you have apparently become fluent in both Arabic and Chinese. Is this correct?

Case Kenny
Fluent is gracious. It’s very nice to say. In college, which was eight, nine years ago at this point, I did major in Chinese and Arabic and then I also studied Hindi and Urdu as well because they’re derived from the foundation of Arabic.

At one point I was quite good at it. I lived in China for a bit, worked at a law firm, considered some government work for Arabic. At one point, totally geeking out on it every single day. I’m not finding myself using too often lately, but the base is there. I can read and write it decently now, but I’ve been meaning to find someone in Chicago to practice with. But it is a true statement.  Fluent is gracious though.

Pete Mockaits
That’s intriguing because I understand these are among the hardest languages to learn in that the characters are not quite looking like A, B, C, D over there. Do you have any pro tips on how you manage to develop a degree of proficiency in these languages?

Case Kenny
Oh man, yeah, they’re very different. Chinese, you need to have a very good memory and you need to have a very good ear. Memory for the characters, certainly because it is symbol based and then ear for the intonations. It’s a tonal language. You can say ‘mother, horse, what’ using the same word. Obviously those are very different meanings. You have to be able to hear that. I would say photographic memory would be super helpful for Chinese.

Arabic, it’s right to left. That is a bit different. But they do have an alphabet, so it makes sense there. The best way to learn a language is to immerse yourself in it completely. That’s not necessarily saying you have to move somewhere, although that certainly helps.

But when I was studying it, it was every single day for three hours over four years. I was only decent at it. Imagine what you could do over ten years if you lived somewhere and you really wanted to do it. But honestly I think some people are just genetically predisposed to being good at languages, but I think anyone with enough practice and immersion can get decent at it.

Pete Mockaits
Let’s talk about learning how to learn. You’ve had a long-standing fascination with personal development as have I. I’d love to hear your story starting from little Case or whatever it’s appropriate to start.

Case Kenny
Sure.

Pete Mockaits
To how it’s pointed you into your current job and podcast and Prsuit. What’s the maybe three-ish minute story arc of how this has pointed you in these directions?

Case Kenny
Yeah, for sure. I think for me, if I’m being honest, my relationship with personal development, my journey to be here, candidly, it’s been a selfish one. It’s always been about me trying to better myself, trying to understand myself, trying to push myself. It was never a fascination with – I’m very interested in how humans adapt and grow.

It’s come to that point now, but initially it was never that way. It was never me sitting down and being like, “I’m very interested in human psychology or Adaptive Behavioral theory,” or anything like that. It was never that way. To be honest, it hasn’t been that longstanding. I’d say over the past five years is where I really came into that. That’s how I built my brand and everything that I do has been around that.

It was inherently personal and a bit selfish in a good way, not in a negative connotation, in that I just kind of looked at my life and what I was doing. I’m 30 now, so we’ll say 25 is really where I started getting into this. I was working Chicago, working at a couple different ad agencies.

I just kind of looked at my career, who I was, what I was doing, my sense of happiness and fulfillment. It seemed very passive to me. It didn’t seem like I was growing towards anything. I didn’t really have an idea of what I was doing. Typical Millennial stuff here. I felt kind of lost. I didn’t know the answers. Things weren’t that clear to me. I think that’s normal.

But on top of that it always just seemed like I wasn’t making decisions for myself. I was doing these things and hoping they would lead me to better places, hoping they would lead me to become more confident and more assured and centered and passionate and creative and all those things.

I just kind of took a step back and realized that vulnerably. I was like I’m not making decisions. I’m very passive right now. I’m not lean forward in my life. It was kind of that realization that just led me to a series of experiences where I did just that, I pushed myself for more experiences.

That’s a vague statement, but it was literally throughout my mid-20s pushing myself to do things that made me really uncomfortable, that made me realize that I can be much more active in my life.

It was kind of through that idea that I started really leaning into my career, which evolved to sales, which is a very lean forward, aggressive, confident kind of activity. And then leaning into my creative skillset, which at this point has become podcasting and writing and entrepreneurship and publishing, digital marketing, and things like that.

They all grew hand-in-hand, where I started to realize that I can make decisions for myself that can better myself both financially influence and then personally. They all just kind of came together and I’ve created this interesting ecosystem for myself, where my passion, my hobby, my career all are built around this idea of pushing myself and being uncomfortable and growing.

Along the way I’ve met a ton of great people, through my company, through my network, through reading and podcasting, things like that that made me realize that I’m very fascinated with this idea of personal development because it’s half science, it’s half theory, it’s half experiences. It’s very personal. I just really find a lot of value in that and that I could sit down and basically describe my experiences and people find value in that.

The more I lean into that, the more I podcast, the more I interview, the more I write, I, in turn, am learning from that. It’s a very meta-type experience for me, where I’m creating content around self-development and that content, in effect, is helping to push me to then create more. It’s just very authentic.

I say it all the time, even on my Instagram, I call myself a dude bro guy with perspective because I am a bit of a bro by any definition. I like going to the club. I like flashy things. Sometimes I’ll say things that people would roll their eyes at. I’m not an expert-

Pete Mockaits
You’ve hit the gym.

Case Kenny
Yeah, I work out.

Pete Mockaits
I can tell from your Instagram photos that you’re visiting the gym.

Case Kenny
Thanks man. Yeah, I try to get the gains. I try to get the protein. I do my thing. I’m not trying to be a life coach. There’s nothing wrong with that, but I’m not trying to do that. I’ve never even tried to be a thought leader. It’s always been about just being better.

Then I’ve always been a voracious writer. I love writing. I just started narrating my experiences and people seem to really enjoy it simply for the fact that I was vulnerable to say “I don’t know the answer.” Again, I’m a bit of a tool sometimes. Call it. I’m a bro. I’m a dude. I’m a guy. Whatever. But here are my thoughts and they might be helpful to you. That’s how my whole evolution has gone.

But again, it’s all around this idea of personal development that I’ve seen myself really, really adapt even in the past five years around this idea of leaning forward versus leaning back. That’s more than three minutes, but that’s kind of how I got into it. Just kind of looking at myself and wanting more of myself. It’s really opened the doors and kind of the world to me frankly.

Pete Mockaits
Well, that’s interesting. It really does come through. As I read Prsuit, available at Prsuit.com without the first U, P-R-S-U-I-T.com and your podcast, New Mindset, Who Dis? It took me a moment. Oh, like “New phone, who dis?” New Mindset, I get it now.

Case Kenny
You get it?

Pete Mockaits
Who Dis, the speech bubbles helped in the cover art. It does come through in terms of it’s vulnerable, it’s raw, it’s you just using your language. That’s fun.

That is just sort of resonant for folks because some people like the scientific flavor, like, “Hey, this study revealed these things with these numbers” Some people dig the poetic flowery expression, like, “Oh, that was a beautiful sentence and a quote that I’ll post to inspire me.” You’re just telling it like you see it in your authentic bro way. I just got a big canister of protein powder, so I can relate a little bit at times. I appreciate what you’re up to.

Let’s dig in then. This whole notion of leaning forward instead of backward and pushing yourself to do things that make you uncomfortable, well, I think that’s kind of easier said than done. How did you kind of start that momentum in terms of, “Hey, I am going to push myself to do this even though it’s uncomfortable?” Can you give us some specific examples of what made you uncomfortable and what you did?

Case Kenny
Yeah. I would say there’s a couple things in there that have really led me to realize that and that continued to push myself. It was basically the idea of I needed to embarrass myself more because now I would consider myself probably too confident, too much self-esteem. Sometimes it pours out of me in ways that people perceive as negative. But it used to be the direct opposite, where very self-conscious, very timid, didn’t want to speak up, just nervous in that respect.

Two things along the way made me realize that one, no one cares and two, the more you push yourself, the more you realize that.

The first going way back, before my mid-20s was waiting tables at Applebee’s. I think everyone should wait tables at some point in their lives. It teaches you so much about people. It teaches you so much about yourself. It teaches you all these skills. But that certainly made me realize you can pack in two years of human interaction experience in a summer waiting tables or whenever you’re waiting tables.

I know for your audience it might be for a good reason too late to go and wait tables because they’re professionals, but maybe for their kids or whatever. I found so much value in that. It gave me a little bit of a teaser that I kind of tucked away in my pocket and then kind of came back to realize now in my mid-20s, but of the power of that idea of understanding people really don’t care or people really aren’t watching you as much as they do.

I would leave that just there as a context to what I’m talking about here. Then the other one is it was when I turned 26 – 27 is I left my agency job in Chicago because I started having these feelings. If you know digital advertising agencies, it’s a bit of a grind, bit of a sweatshop. You learn a lot, don’t get me wrong. I’m very grateful for the experiences. But you don’t make a lot. It’s very ambiguous in how you can be successful. It’s a grind.

This idea in my head, I wanted to prove to myself that I was capable, not only of being impactful and using my skills in an impactful way, but also I wanted to make money, to be candid. I wanted to make money. I’ll never think there’s anything wrong with that. That’s where I hustled my way into a sales role.

That’s the second thing I think everyone should try to do at some point is some type of sales, whether it’s more blasé business development or a pure sales commission role. That’s where I came into my own because I’ve been in this role for a while.

The old Case, pre-sales verse post-sales, I’ve learned so much about myself. I embarrass myself regularly. I am awkward regularly. I am in rooms that I have no business being in. I’ve been able to make money, which is great, but it’s been those experiences where I’ve completely failed and crashed in a meeting, I’ve entertained so many clients, taking people out to dinners every night of the week. I’ve packed all this life experience into this short amount of time.

All of that is compete lean forward. You’re not going to be successful in that role without leaning forward. You can’t sit back and hope that “Oh, maybe I’ll be passionate about this or maybe it will lead me in the right direction.” I’m not even talking about being successful. I’m just talking about proving to yourself that you can do things.

It definitely started with that sales idea. From there, it’s basically just me in a mindset now of anytime I have the opportunity to do something or think of something and if my reaction to is I don’t want to do it because it makes me uncomfortable, I’ve honestly – people might go, “that’s bullshit” – but I force myself to do it now. I crave that experience because I know how powerful it will be for me.

And now, in retrospect, now  that I have my podcast and it’s doing well, I know I can talk about it as a good experience-driven piece of content, but someone the other day was like, “Hey Case, I want you to dress up as the Easter Bunny for this kid’s Easter celebration.”

Of course, I was like, “Oh my gosh, that sounds horribly embarrassing and something like I do not want to do it,” but then in the back of my head I’m like, “I should probably do that because it is both of those things and I should do that simply for that very fact.”

It’s thoughts like that that have really, really pushed me to do things where I’m likely to embarrass myself, but the result has been I’m so much more confident in myself, like light years. It’s really opened my eyes. That was a lot.

Pete Mockaits
Okay. I was right with you in terms of trying sales, crashing in meetings, you feel uncomfortable, you push yourself to do that, and where was our last 30 seconds here?

Case Kenny
It’s evolved from there. That idea of pushing myself forward in a business setting, where there’s a little bit more structure, has made me realize that I can take that concept of pushing myself to be uncomfortable outside of that. The result is now I really crave that idea of being uncomfortable, being awkward, being embarrassed.

It’s cliché to say, but I want to do it now, whereas before, any opportunity I had to sink into the shadows or sit in the back, I would do it. Now I want the direct opposite of that because I’ve seen how more powerful it has made me as far as just taking ownership of what I want to do. Along the way, it’s developed my confidence. I’m happier because I’m pushing myself in a direction that I’ve created rather than just coasting. But it definitely started with sales. I will give sales that credit.

Pete Mockaits
Yeah, that’s really intriguing how you have kind of rewired your fundamental reaction to stuff. That’s really cool. I’d love to get your take on if folks are just getting started, like, “Yeah, I am so not there. I very much prefer to not embarrass myself and prefer not to feel this discomfort, what would you recommend to be some of the very first steps?

Case Kenny
Yeah, I would ask them why they prefer that. My guess would be, “Well, it’s uncomfortable. It’s awkward. It’s embarrassing.” But my question would be, “Well, you’re basing that on an experience or two, where that happened to you.” I think life is about trial and error and you need a larger sample size. The most happy, fulfilled, creative, successful people I know are constantly embarrassing themselves.

One of my good friends is the CRO of a company in Chicago, billion-dollar company. The dude is bullheaded, so bullheaded he embarrasses himself all the time. You’d say, “Wow, a guy of that stature, a guy who’s a CRO, who’s buttoned-up, who’s very successful, you would think a guy like that never embarrasses himself,” but no, he does it all the time.

It sounds masochistic to be like, “You’ve got to go and embarrass yourself.” It’s not that. It’s just you put yourself in a position where you’re uncomfortable. That’s all it is. I think for people to be like, “Ah, I’m uncomfortable to do that,” I would say, “Okay, that’s a natural feeling.”

Feeling that way doesn’t make you any less in any respect. You just have to realize that you feel that way because you’ve only done it a couple times. The more that you do it, the more you realize it doesn’t matter.

Then the more you realize it doesn’t matter, I think you’ll come to realize that what separates confident, driven, creative people from people who are not that is their threshold for that thing. It’s like how much are they willing to go through, whether that’s awkwardness or discomfort or stress or frustration, it’s the threshold for that I think in any aspect of life that’s going to make you successful.

I think if you can kind of contextualize yourself within that spectrum and I think that’s what’s going to push you. It’s definitely like a mental chess game with yourself. You have to convince yourself, but once you do it to my point, it’s a little bit addicting because it’s like leveling up for me. I’m like accruing awkward points and I can cash them in for confidence. That’s how I see it literally.

It’s not a game certainly because it could be awkward, but I just see so much value, I’ve convinced myself that. I think if you start with that mindset, you’ll gradually find more momentum there.

Pete Mockaits
Well, that’s edifying in terms of viewing that awkward points as a currency and those experiences are right there, able to be turned into having more confidence or upgrade from it. Boy, just chewing on that for a while, it’s pretty fun. The formula then is – you say embarrass yourself. It’s not about streaking across town.

Case Kenny
Yeah, let’s be clear. It’s not falling flat on your face. Yeah.

Pete Mockaits
It’s about entering situations that you feel uncomfortable in, you have no business being there, you’re not yet adequate, competent, qualified to go there, but nonetheless, you’re going there. Because you’re there and you haven’t been there before, it feels kind of awkward, feels kind of uncomfortable and when you say some things, you might feel embarrassed and stupid.

Case Kenny
Yeah, exactly.

Pete Mockaits
But after having done that a few times, you get the upgrade, like, “Oh yeah, I’ve done those sorts of meetings numerous times. It’s no big deal and I feel confident there.”

Case Kenny
Absolutely. Yup.

Pete Mockaits
I’d love to get your take a little bit on some practices when we’re talking about confidence with regard to maybe exercise or posture or meditation. Do any of these play into it for you?

Case Kenny
Yeah, certainly. Absolutely. I talk a lot about confidence. Meditation for me, I guess I have rampant ADD or something. I’ve never found it to work for me.

Really for me everything that I’ve found to be effective has been experience driven to the last five minutes that we’ve been talking about. I think certainly posture, the idea of a power stance, things like that helps.

But people sometimes read my content and listen to my podcast and they get a lot of it. But I’m assuming that people might also be like, “Case, there’s no science behind this,” or like, “Where’s the five steps,” or “Where’s the practices, the daily practices?” I don’t really know what to tell you because everything that I’ve learned to be impactful in my life has been mindset driven, hence the name of the podcast, New Mindset, Who Dis?

I have seen the power of the mind to be so much more impactful than the power of a five-step process or the power of something similar. That’s just the way I’ve always been because it’s always been easier for me to sit and think myself out of action, to sit and try meditation, for example. It’s been easy for me to sit in a corner and adopt a power stance.

But those are passive activities and I realize that if I want to have an active, lean-forward mentality towards life, I have to make my mind want to do those things. I have to basically trick myself or incentivize myself or motivate myself to want to act. That’s what I’ve come to realize about myself. It took 30 years call it, but that’s why everything for me goes back to my mindset.

It’s not about little practices that offer temporary growth or whatever. It’s about a sustained mindset that makes me want to do those things, that makes me want to be uncomfortable to grow because, again, I’ve seen the other side call it. I’ve seen where the grass is greener and I want to continue to go that way. To me it’s always been just about that mindset. Now I have it and it’s more sustained.

To me, I would much rather grow in a sustained way than adopt practices that, for me, just don’t work over time. They might work for someone else and that’s fantastic, but in my dude-bro-guy reality, apparently it’s more about getting my mind right and getting centered in that and then taking that with me every day.

Pete Mockaits
I’d love it if you could maybe articulate some particular new mindsets with regard to hey, old mindset and new mindset, whether that’s with regard to a belief or a vibe associated with each and sort of what are the implications that those new mindsets have brought?

Case Kenny
Yeah, one that I’ve been thinking about lately, I wrote about this somewhat frequently, but I did an episode and I called it Nah, Bigger. It’s actually the background on my phone. It’s Nah, N-A-H, comma Bigger, like the idea of I look at something or I think about something and I motivate myself to be like, “Nah, bigger.” I can think bigger. I can do better. I can do more. I can push myself more.

That’s the mindset, nothing unique in that necessarily. It’s the idea of pushing yourself, and in my case, the idea of pushing myself to be more uncomfortable, to be more successful, to be a better man, to be a better entrepreneur, to be a better content creator, whatever, to push myself. I’ve got all kinds of thoughts on how to motivate yourself to do that. But that’s one mindset that I talk a lot about.

But within that mindset, and I think a lot of people are very aggressive in setting goals for themselves, to want to do more and grow and all that. That’s always been great, but I’ve found that that mindset alone has really detracted from a bit of my happiness because I always want more. It was always the same way.

It’s like, “Oh, I make 50K, I’ll be happy.” Then I made 50K. It’s like, “Well, it’s got to be 100. I’ve got to make 100.” It’s like that. Then you’re always going to want more and you’re not going to be necessarily happy. I did another episode the other day and I called it Yeah, Grateful. Basically, that’s exactly what you think it would be. It’s the idea of being grateful.

Basically with this ‘nah, bigger’ verse ‘yeah, grateful’ mindset, it’s two mindsets that come together in the form of writing a list of things that you want to grow, basically your goals, and then things that you’re grateful for, your gratitude list or gratitude journal, whatever people want to call it. I combine those two and that’s offered a lot of just more centeredness and happiness for me.

The ability to place those two things side by side physically on a list – wish I had it here with me – and to be able to look at those things and it really balances you out.

That’s the mindset that’s been particularly impactful for me is that mindset of balance because it’s so easy, whether professionally or physically or creatively or personally, to get so ahead of yourself on wanting more and bigger and better and not balancing it with that gratitude and the result is you kind of drive yourself crazy.

I’ve always driven myself crazy with that, wanting more, wanting the podcast to be bigger, pursuit to make more money, to get bigger and stronger, all those things. When in reality, if I step back, there’s so many little things to be grateful for.

Life has really taught me that, whether through personal tragedies or just my own observation and introspection. Combine those two provides balance and balance is everything. You can have a million mindsets, but if you don’t balance them, you’re going to be all over the place. To me, that’s the biggest thing I think for personal growth and development is balance.

I talk to a lot of people who, even by their own admission, would be self-help junkies. They love it. They read the books, they listen to the podcast, they post the inspirational quotes, they’re all about it, but they’re not balanced.

A couple issues. Probably they love to consume and not act necessarily. But also they’re filling their mind with all these mindsets that are pushing them for more and more and more and more, better, better, better, growth, growth, growth and they’re not balancing it with the most centering thing you could possibly do, which is being thankful for what you have.

It’s a lot of clichés in there, but I think the idea of placing those two concepts side by side, that’s been the most powerful mindset that I’ve adopted. I preach to it a lot. It’s done a lot for me.

It’s centered me because I’m Mr. Self-Development. I’m supposed to be pushing myself and pushing people, but I think it’s taking a step back and balancing those two that’s going to make your self-development journey enjoyable, because otherwise what’s the point. Longwinded way of saying it’s balance, but I’ve found that to be really, really impactful.

Pete Mockaits
Well, yeah, I really like that notion. Gratitude’s come up several times before. But this is a little bit of a unique angle to put it right there side by side so that does just sort of change the whole energy and feel associated with your striving or your ambition.

Instead of it being in place of “Where I’m at right now is inadequate and I’m stressed about it,” to “Okay, there’s a big thing that’s pulling me forward. I’m excited for it and I’m also grateful for where I’ve come from and the way things are now.” That’s really awesome. I further want to get your take when it comes to the balance equation. In the world of pushing yourself and hustling and going for it versus resting, rejuvenation, self-care, how do you wrestle with those guys?

Case Kenny
Yeah. That’s a great question and my immediate answer would be I don’t know. I don’t have the best answer for you. I would tell anyone that. I would be lying if I was like, “Oh, it’s easy. You’ve got to do this.”

I would say that I’ve learned a lot in that respect because that defines me to a T and it’s tough though. Everything on Instagram makes you feel like you’re falling behind and you need to push yourself. The internet in its entirety does that to you. You’re going to feel like you’re running behind. I think there’s no real way around falling into that outside of realizing that you need to balance it otherwise you’re not going to be happy.

I think the past couple of years I pushed myself so hard that I came to realize it and I came to realize that through experience. It’s gotten to a point where I’ve found a really good balance.

I think a lot of people when they hear the word gratitude they think about things like, “Oh, I’ve got to do gratitude journaling. I’ve got to hop into an hour-long meditation session.” For me, it’s literally just writing one or two things down a day that I’m thankful for. It’s not a big, long process. Even that practice doesn’t really even do anything. It’s literally looking at those two lists side by side and realizing that you’re doing just fine.

That’s always been my idea of progress and success anyway is small, little incremental steps and looking at those rather than the big picture that offers a lot of fulfillment. I think people set these big goals and when they’re not there, they get really frustrated, but you can balance that by looking at the smaller goals and working towards those and marking those off and then respecting gratitude towards that along the way.

I don’t have the best balance. I think for me, I am in a lucky position to my point earlier that really everything I do selfishly helps me. It’s like I see the value in pushing myself from a business perspective, from a career perspective, but I know that it’s also helping me personally to my note about sales as well. They’re all very intertwined. I definitely recognize that it’s a unique scenario.

But I put myself in that position. I’ll pat myself on the back there. But I’m still learning to be honest. Late nights, always wanting more. I’ve got a whiteboard behind me of things that I’m working towards that I haven’t achieved yet. It weighs on my mind, but I also can look in the other room to my list of things that I’m grateful for and that always centers me. It’s a work in progress. I’ll say that.

Pete Mockaits
Well, are there particular sort of boundaries or rejuvenation practices that you undertake to stay in the game?

Case Kenny
Yeah. Here’s the dude bro answer. The gym certainly. I find music combined with activity just to be so extremely motivating and energizing. I can literally flip a switch – if I’m having a bad day and I can put on some good music. I listen to a lot of electronic music. The right song, the right genre can totally turn things around. It’s different for everyone. Not everyone’s going to respond to music that way. But to rejuvenate myself, it’s literally music.

You combine that with the gym or you combine that with walking around Chicago when it’s nice out, that does it completely for me, just to get out of the context where I’m frustrated. I think that’s a lesson that anyone can take. If you’re ever frustrated in the office or from your home office or the gym, if you’re frustrated with your gains or your body, it’s like you’ve got to get out of that context. You’ve got to remove yourself from it.

I think that does a lot for me. I realize that because I always used to shut myself in and kind of mull over the thing that was frustrating me, but removing myself from that has really made me realize one, there’s more, two, there’s things you can be grateful for, and three, there’s just more possibilities outside of what you’re hung up on.

Music is definitely a key ingredient there. People always make fun of me because I love my AirPods and I always have them in and people think I’m on calls and whatnot when I’m really just listening to music or forgot to take them out, but that’s how frequent it is for me because it keeps my energy and it keeps me excited.

There’s something very cathartic with good music. I listen to a lot of electronic, to my point, but trance music, which has a lot of climaxes and drops. It’s a very emotional kind of journey kind of thing. Kind of like classical music I suppose, a lot of builds. That just energizes you. It instills a sense of positivity in me and optimism. I just run with that.

Any time I’m frustrated, I try to remove myself, music, gym, outside, something like that. Not the usual – I don’t find go and hang out with friends that rejuvenating. I have great, amazing friends, but I wouldn’t look to social interaction to be the thing to rejuvenate me. If anything it makes me start to think of things relative to them and start comparing and whatnot. I find it to be going and do something like I just described and then coming back and working from that context.

Pete Mockaits
Understood. Well, I’m also curious when you’re having those times where maybe you just don’t feel like pushing yourself, like the motivation is low on that day, you mentioned music and the gym or activity are some of your go-to’s. Do you have any other things you do that bring the motivation back when it seems to be missing?

Case Kenny
Yeah. Certainly for me, since I am a writer – if someone asked me what I do, I would say I’m a writer, kind of translates into podcasting as well – it’s writing. I think if you’re ever frustrated with something or trying to break it down, it’s like whatever creative field can do that for you. For me, it’s writing.

When I sit down and just start writing about something, if it’s something that bothers me, that allows me to break it down. Sometimes I block myself in my own thoughts because I’m not forcing something tangible out of it, but when I write I have to put something on paper, so it really forces me to be more introspective.

Same with the podcast. When I create content, my episodes are only 20 minutes long, but it’s basically my own therapy session. Those are practices. They’re also my business. But they will allow me to kind of rejuvenate myself, be introspective, get something out of myself, grow, and at the same time basically document the process so that other people can get value out of it at the same time.

Again, these aren’t scientific practices. I’m not drilling down the latest study to help shift the mindset, but I really believe in the power of practices like this that really force you to understand how your mind works, what is blocking you and how you can be more lean-forward relative to it.

For me, it’s been writing. I can sit down and just start writing. I always joke, “I’ve just got a lot of feelings.” I would just start pouring them out. It works really well for me.

I started the podcast and I usually write down the majority of it beforehand in a very detailed outline. I’ve only been doing it for about eight months, but those eight months have been so much growth because I released episode 95 today and 95 episodes of my own experiences, my own funny stories, my own uncomfortable experiences, my own growth stories. Going through those and looking at them, that’s amazing double growth for me.

I’m pretty intentional with that, but, again, I found it a great mix for me personally that combines my skillset with my goal, which is to grow.

Pete Mockaits
Well, I’d love it, we talked about a lot of things that have been good to do, are there any kind of key mistakes or things that you recommend not doing as you’re pursing the cultivation of motivation and learning and growth?

Case Kenny
Yeah, of course. A couple things, I’m trying to avoid clichés here but it’s tough to avoid clichés in the self-help space because everyone said something at some point. It’s all about your own personal perspective on it.

But I think things to avoid are comparisons certainly. The idea of highlight reels verse behind the scenes. We tend to frustrate ourselves very much so when we compare ourselves, but we’re comparing our behind the scenes, our grind, our challenges with something that we see on social media, which is someone’s highlight reel.

We get really down on ourselves because we think we’re falling behind, we think we’re not extraordinary, we’re not doing good things, we’re slow, whatever, when in reality is if you’re going to compare, you should be comparing your behind the scenes with someone else’s behind the scenes. That’s easier said than done. It’s not that easy when people publish good things about themselves, not the struggles.

But I think people should come to realize that, especially in the day and age of Instagram and Facebook. Everything you see that people are putting out are going to be their either highly-filtered, highly-adjusted stories or it’s going to be the best moments of their life. People aren’t necessarily going to share the in betweens or the left of the spectrum.

I think unless you realize that, you’re going to feel like you’re falling behind and then it’s just kind of a vicious cycle. I definitely would say that’s a big one certainly.

Another one for me and it’s at the risk of sounding too full of myself, but it’s always been this idea of when I was younger and I would walk into a room of people, whether it was business or personal, I would always walk in with the hope that the group of people would like me. “Oh man, I hope they like me. I hope they see value in me.”

Now it’s really switched to that of, “I wonder if I will like them.” Not in like a pretentious way, “Oh they need to impress me,” or anything. It’s just a mindset shift where you’re not validating yourself through how other people react to you or how other people perceive you.

Certainly it’s important in your profession and in general that people have a good impression of you I suppose, but the mindset of hoping that your self-worth is going to be validated by their impression of you, that goes back to what I was saying earlier. That’s very passive. I’ve really adjusted my mindset against that.

I would say those two pop out at me, the idea of comparison and then the idea of a desire to be validated by other folks. I think those are easily addressed but the need to be lean forward, but then from there you’ve got to put more practices in place to push yourself. But I think those two things would certainly be things to avoid to answer your question.

Pete Mockaits
Well, Case, tell me, anything else you want to make sure to mention before we shift gears and hear about some of your favorite things?

Case Kenny
No, no, I think that’s it. I think for me, my growth, the things that I talk about it’s like you’re never set in stone on anything in particular. There’s no shame in pivoting and changing direction and anything like that. There’s nothing wrong with that.

If you’re doing one thing today – people see a negative connotation, flip-flopping or saying one thing one day and doing another or going left and then going right. I don’t see anything wrong with that. To me that means that you’re growing and you’re trying different things. I think that’s really powerful. I would never see any shame in changing your mind, in changing your perspective, in changing your political party. I don’t know.

I don’t see any shame with that because it means that you’re willing to experience a new perspective, a new routine, a new habit and that is how you get to know yourself, not through considering them and thinking about them. It’s through experiencing them. I would just add that. I found that to be really, really valuable in my life.

Pete Mockaits
All right, thank you. Now could you share a favorite quote, something that you find inspiring?

Case Kenny
Yeah, I figured you’d ask that. I’m going to quote Winnie-the-Pooh. I posted this on my Instagram the other day. But it’s the three-line quote where Pooh goes, “What day is it?” Then Piglet says, “It’s today.” Then Pooh goes, “My favorite day.” I just like that. People who know me, know I’m very optimistic. I just really love life to an extent. I just see so much upside to every day. That captures it. Today is my favorite day because it is today and I woke up today, so I love that quote.

Pete Mockaits
Well, you mentioned a couple times you don’t rely on studies, but I ask everybody. Do you have a favorite study, or experiment or bit of research?

Case Kenny
Oh boy. Can I say no? Off the top of my head, I don’t think I have one.

Pete Mockaits
All right. How about a favorite book?

Case Kenny
Favorite book. Ton of great self-help books. I know folks listening aren’t necessarily entrepreneurs, but The Lean Startup by Eric Ries is one of my favorite books for business. It’s basically this idea of starting a business you should test and test and test and then pivot and test and pivot, start small, start fast, be impatient and then you build businesses that way.

You don’t build businesses by working on it for a year and theorizing and then testing. You’ve got to test, test, test to understand what will do well.

To my point just a minute ago, I think that’s life. That’s what life’s all about. Test, test, test, see what works for you, and then build on that and you shouldn’t be afraid to pivot. I like that book because I am an entrepreneur, I am a business person, but I’m also really into self-development, so those worlds collide very nicely there. It’s a great book.

Pete Mockaits
How about a favorite tool, something that helps you be awesome at your job?

Case Kenny
LinkedIn certainly because my job, influence, creation is all about connections and that helps me network certainly.

Pete Mockaits
And a favorite habit?

Case Kenny
Favorite habit would be what I just described, updating the Nah, Bigger and Yeah, Grateful list. I do that if not every day, every other day. I would say weekly.

Pete Mockaits
If folks want to learn more or get in touch, where would you point them?

Case Kenny
Instagram is usually the best way to get ahold of me. It’s Case.Kenny on Instagram. Of course the podcast, New Mindset, Who Dis? or Prsuit, P-R-S-U-I-T. I’m the guy behind it all, so it’s pretty easy to find me.

Pete Mockaits
Do you have a final challenge or call to action for folks seeking to be awesome at their jobs?

Case Kenny
Yeah, I think to be awesome at your job you have to be happy as a person. I am, again, the self-development guy. I think that truly goes back to gratitude.

I’ve been in sales for a long time and it’s easy to be like, “I’m not making enough money. I’m not closing enough,” or yada, yada, yada. When in reality you take a step back and you did that Nah, Bigger verse Yeah, Grateful practice even in your profession, I think you’d realize that your growth is there, your progress is there, there’s a lot to be thankful for and to lean on that will make you happy.

When you’re happy, you preform and when you perform, you excel, and so on and so forth. I think gratitude would definitely fit into that context as well.

Pete Mockaits
Awesome. Well, Case, this has been a treat. Thanks so much. I wish you tons of luck with Prsuit and New Mindset, Who Dis, and all your adventures.

Case Kenny
Thank you, Pete. I appreciate it, man. This was great.

Apr 10
0

424: How to Help People Get to the Next Level with Jeremie Kubicek

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Jeremie Kubicek says: "Part of the issue of leadership is that we have expectations that we don't share and unmet expectations produce bitterness."

Jeremie Kubicek teaches how to multiply your leadership many times over.

You’ll Learn:

  1. Tools for being the best sherpa for your team, like the Support-Challenge Matrix
  2. Pro tips for better supporting and challenging yourself and others
  3. Critical expectations that need to be spelled ou

About Jeremie

Jeremie Kubicek is a thought leader who specializes in transformational leader development. He is CEO of GiANT TV, and Chairman and co-founder of GiANT Worldwide, where he helps people grow through powerful content across the globe. Additionally, Jeremie is the bestselling author of Making Your Leadership Come Alive.Together with Steve Cockram, he is also the author of 5 Voices and 5 Gears.

Items Mentioned in this Show:

Jeremie Kubicek Interview Transcript

Pete Mockaitis
Jeremie, thanks so much for joining us here on How To Be Awesome At Your Job podcast.

Jeremie Kubicek
So good to be with you, Pete. Thank you for the time.

Pete Mockaitis
Oh well, thank you for the time. I mean, it’s a really big day for you and the book launch process. Tell us what’s going on. You just hit number one in Amazon category, which is cool. Congratulations.

Jeremie Kubicek
Thank you. I know. It’s really fun.

Pete Mockaitis
Yeah. What have you been up to and what’s the secret to your success here in this book promotion?

Jeremie Kubicek
I’ve done a lot of different books. My background and history, I used to run a lot of leadership businesses. So I was always the background guy for a number of years. So the corner office guy, right? Who did big events, Leadercast, Catalyst. I worked with John Maxwell and Henry Cloud, and those different thought leaders, and so on and so forth.

I’ve been writing my own books for the last, I don’t know, seven to eight years. One, you build the following. But what we’ve done is we basically built a leadership summit. That’s been really interesting. It has actually worked. Where we built a free two-and-a-half-hour event that anyone in the world can use with their teams. Then it has just driven a lot of appreciation, because it’s adding a lot of value to people, more than just a book. This is a thought. Take the thought and work it into your system. So that’s been our research and it has actually played out really nicely.

Pete Mockaitis
That’s cool. So is that sort of like, buy the book and you get the free access to the event or the video?

Jeremie Kubicek
Yes and/or the opposite. Do the event and books come with it. So it’s either way. So a lot of teams are working with that. Then we have a lot of our own consultants, or coaches, or people that want to draw people they can actually put on the event and bring it in for their own networking or what have you. Then the book is basically what the participant gets when they come.

Pete Mockaitis.
That’s cool. Well, clever, clever. I don’t know how many listeners care about book promotions, but I sure do.

Jeremie Kubicek
Yeah, I know.

Pete Mockaitis
But I guess what I’m trying to underscore here is, you are in the thick of it and we appreciate you taking the time.

Jeremie Kubicek
Yeah. Thank you.

Pete Mockaitis
So your book here, The 100X Leader? Or do you pronounce it internally in your head? 100 times leader?

Jeremie Kubicek
No. I said 100X. You said that right, yeah. It still means the same thing. Times and Xs. It’s multiplication.

Pete Mockaitis
[…] my consulting days. They always talk about three x-ing the revenue or something?

Jeremie Kubicek
Yes.

Pete Mockaitis
That three times-ing or tripling. So what’s the big idea behind this book?

Jeremie Kubicek
The big idea is that in our world system, we don’t have enough of the right kind of leader. We have a lot of leaders, but leadership is not equal. All leaders are not equal. That jargon of leadership, it means too many different things. It’s too generic.

So we basically broke it down and said, “A 100X Leader is someone who’s trending to be a healthy person.” They’re healthy emotionally, physically, mentally, and a kind of more well-rounded person. They’re heading to that direction. They’ve acclimated enough to such a degree that they then can X or multiply themselves.

Most leaders that we find are either 60 negative or 75 plus. So they’re jaded and they show up at work, and they’re living accidentally. Everyone around them kind of gets the life sucked out of them when they’re around these people. Or there’s this 75 plus leader that’s generally healthy and they’ll add value if you come to them and they, “Yeah, yeah. Sure. What do you need? I’ll help you.” But they’re not intentionally looking to take people to the next level.

Pete Mockaitis
60 negative and 75 plus. Can you orient me? Is there ratio, or numerator, or denominator? What’s the number pointing to?

Jeremie Kubicek
Well, it’s an overall. It’s almost like what do you think of that movie? 1 through 10. Your view of the movie and my view of the movie. You might call it 8 and I might give it a 6. So it’s a little subjective. But it’s the construct of going, “Are you healthy? Are you moving in the healthy? So then we break it down in the book.

There’s five circles of influence. There’s self, family, team, organization, and community. So what’s interesting about it is that we find that most leaders haven’t done the hard yards to look at themselves in the mirror and go, “How am I doing in each category?” Because most people think of leadership only in the team construct. We said, “No, no, no. What about self and leading yourself? That is a leadership opportunity. What about your family and leading there? What about in the community?”

So there’s other categories of leadership. I could be useful, for instance, 60%, to myself. Maybe I dominate myself. Maybe I speak over myself negative words. Maybe I subtract some 60 negative in the self-circle. To my family, maybe I’m 70% and plus. So in each category, we’re basically using the idea of 100X that said, “How healthy are you?

Now, we have some tests in the book. We have certain things where you can actually test yourself and rank yourself, and come up with your number and what you think.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay.

Jeremie Kubicek
That’s the general idea of it.

Pete Mockaitis
So you say 60 negative? These are kind of like two things here. It’s a 60 on the 0 to 100 scale and it’s a negative in the health?

Jeremie Kubicek
It’s negative in your influence. So X means multiplication of your influence. How influential are you? Do people want to follow you or do they have to follow you? So the idea is if I’m a 100X Leader. I’m someone that people want to follow, because I’m intentionally multiplying myself. I’m bringing the best that I have to help other people become the best they could be.

That’s what usually breaks down in most of the leaders that we run into, in organizations, are just waking up in the morning. They maybe have gotten beaten down to such a degree, so that anyone that comes in contact with them, they’re multiplication is they’re multiplying negative. They’re not multiplying positive.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. So I’m kind of hung up on your figures here, but let me nail this down. Okay. So you’re saying that we take a good look at these five key areas. The self, family, team, organization, and community, and see how you doing 0 to 100 hundred in terms of just kind of what’s the performance level there.

Then we have a negative influence in terms of how other people are picking up on that vibe from you or a positive influence, if it’s a happy vibe. Or a multiplicative influence in the terms of they are now equipped to do all the more. Is that fair?

Jeremie Kubicek
Yeah. Are you intentionally multiplying your skills, knowledge, and wisdom into those that you’re leading? Or it could be on the other end of the spectrum of dividing. I’m going to give an example. This week, I’m just working with a public company. The executive team, working with the CEO, helping this person understand himself. This person, the CEO, is really, really getting into it and understanding. “Ha! I can’t give what I don’t possess. So am I as a person and as a leader?”

So he’s moving to that direction. I’m giving him tools, which are laced throughout the book to help him become 100% or move in that direction. So his trajectory is good. But then we started looking at his executive team. As I gave him the numbers to play with, he was ranking his own team going, “You know, I think so and so is at a –.”

I’ll just make up names, so that if anyone’s listening. I think Bob is at a 70. I think there’s some things in his life that’s kind of keeping him—I think, Lisa, she might be at a 90. She’s got—But Tom, Tom is really 40. Not only 40. I think he’s divisive. Feels like he is against his own team. He’s against us. He’s accusing us. He is not bought in and he’s not adding any value in the organization.

So that concept of the 100X leader is really the idea of you becoming an intentional person and starting thinking about your own health and your own multiplication. Then we get into the use of the Sherpa, which we’ll get into. But we give metaphors to help people understand the construct of it.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. I hear you there. So then let’s talk a little bit about the Sherpa. So you’re using this as a metaphor of great leadership and why the Sherpa?

Jeremie Kubicek
Trying to explain this, like I’m doing here, is we basically said what is the metaphor? In Giant, in our company, what we do is we take really complex ideas and make them simple enough. Because we realized that in organizations to spread, it needs to be effective to the 13-year-old. If a 13-year-old will understand it, it will spread inside an organization. If a 13-year-old can’t get it, there’ll be dead ends.

So we create objective common language through visual tools. The metaphor we use was Mount Everest, but specifically the Sherpa on Mount Everest, which is the people group of Mount Everest who were born at 14,000 feet. They basically are helping people get to the next level. They’re synonymous with leading people up the mountain. So the idea is that most leaders think of leadership as like them climbing to the top and the best leadership. I’m like, “Well, that’s part of it. We want you to get acclimated, so you can make it to the peak.”

But the process of leadership is not about you climbing the mountain. It’s actually when you get back from the top, from the summit, and get back into base camp. Three days from now, Pete, I’m going to give you three whiny people. I need you to take these people up the mountain. So you’ve got to be 100%. You have to be acclimated, like a Sherpa is, to take people who may not be as acclimated as you are, and how do you help them get up to the next level?

That is leadership. That is the success of a leader. It’s not how many times you’ve peaked or summited, it’s how many times you’ve helped other people summit.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. So then, can you walk us through in practice? How does one pull that off?

Jeremie Kubicek
Yeah. So to do that, if you’re climbing a mountain, you need tools. If you’re climbing Mount Everest, you need to have rope training. You need to have altitude training. You need to be able to understand crampons, and ice picks, and ladders, and so on and so forth. So we’ve basically created these tools, so that you could be a Sherpa. Our goal is to train people to be Sherpa. Not the real Sherpa, but the figurative Sherpa.

One of those tools is called the Support-Challenge Matrix. The idea of the Support-Challenge Matrix is that, at all times, you understand the people that you’re leading. Do they need more support from you right now or do they need more challenge? Well, it’s important for you to know your own tendencies first. A lot of people that we’ve talked with have – they’re really good at providing challenge, but they’re not very effective in providing significant support. Or they could be the other end. They could be supporters. They bring a lot of support, but they don’t bring enough challenge.

So understanding what your own tendencies are and then understanding how the people that you lead. What do they need? What does support and challenge look like for them? So a Sherpa is always going, “Okay. My job is to fight for the highest possible good of those I lead. Do they know I’m for them? Do they think I’m against them? Or do they think I’m for myself? I’ve got to be for them, for them to really respond to me. What’s their tendency? How do they receive support? How do they receive challenge? Based on their personality, their wiring. Then my job is to see what they need, understand what’s undermining their influence, and help them get to the next level.” So that’s one example of getting people to the next level. Does that make sense?

Pete Mockaitis
So you say Support-Challenge Matrix. I’m visualizing a two by two or whether is the visual –

Jeremie Kubicek
Yes. That’s right. So you have 2:2 […]. You’ve got high support. If the X and Y and low support, you have high challenge and low challenge. If you put those two together, then going, “Okay. The best leaders in the world calibrate high support and high challenge.” We’ve called that verb as liberating. So to liberate. It means to provide and create a culture of growth and opportunity.

If you bring high challenge with low support, that’s a dominating tendency. There’s fear-based, manipulation. It’s yelling. So that domination never produces empowerment. It usually always produces compliance. For instance, I lived in Russia for a few years back in the early 90’s and I had watched 70 years of domination. I’ll never forget. I was coming out of my flat and there was another apartment complex next to me, and this guy carries out a speaker, puts it over his head, and slams it to the ground right by the trash.

It was really weird. He came to this like real emotional. Then there was a guy behind him and then another one. I stood there and watched 120 people. I counted. So 120 people came and threw their speaker, and slammed it, and crushed it. I asked the guy. I was like, “Hey, […]. What’s going on here? What is this?” He goes, “This is the listening device from the communists. We’re done. We’re tired of it.” When he told me what it was, it was in each apartment complex, the government had put a listening device. It was a speaker in the kitchen of every apartment. There was music playing 24/7. It was basically a big brother tactic that showed that we are always listening. So they didn’t know if they were not.

Pete Mockaitis
Whoa! It’s playing music and it’s listening. The whole time.

Jeremie Kubicek
That’s right. Well, you didn’t know if they’re listening. Because it was a placebo type. They maybe basically set it up, but people didn’t know. So it was fear-based.

Pete Mockaitis
They were then creating information process, I those old days.

Jeremie Kubicek
I know. That’s what you think. There’s 14 million listening devices and 14 million people. Surely, you can’t listen to all of them. But it didn’t matter. It was the culture of fear and manipulation. So that culture created domination. Well, if you look at the workforce. I’m not saying it is now but back then, if you look at the workforce of the Russians, it was abdicating. It was compliance. It was do enough to not get sent to prison. Do enough to not die. Do enough to keep in the party line. Not empowerment.

So domination, high challenge without high support, produces abdication. Whereas a lot of kids, especially in the Midwest – East Coast is kind of known for that high challenge, less support. In the Midwest, a lot of places are high support and low challenge. So it’s kind of hinting a lot.

Pete Mockaitis
You mean, it’s. Don’t you know?

Jeremie Kubicek
Yeah. “Hey Pete, how’s it going? Big event next week. Are we ready for it?” Hint, hint, hint. Meaning, I have expectations, but I’m not sharing them. I hope you just kind of get it. Then when you don’t get it, then I come back to you. “You know Pete – You know Janice, she kind of knows what I’m wanting. So I’m going to have Janice –” It feels kind of like condescension or it kind of feels like mistrust. So that high support with low challenge produces a weird entitlement culture.

We just kept watching this in our studies, in our work. I mean, we’ve been working on this for years. Just inside companies going, “No.” These are cultures that are getting produced. Inside a culture, you could have a dominating culture with this team, an abdicating culture over here, a protecting culture over here. All these sub-cultures. We just started watching that. The same thing happens in your personal life. It happens with your kids. I could dominate one of my kids, protect one of my kids, and be an abdicator to one of my kids, all in one day. That’s what we’re trying to get people to be aware of. So that they can start leading themselves.

Pete Mockaitis
I guess I’m thinking of low support and low challenge. Sounds kind of something like you’re checked out. You’re not really saying it’s tentative

Jeremie Kubicek
Absolutely.

Pete Mockaitis
What’s going on? What do you call those?

Jeremie Kubicek
Yeah, abdicators. So the abdicating culture. There are certain brands. Private equity has a perception of dominating culture. The post office has a perception of abdicating cultures. It’s not that they are, it’s just there’s a perception, certain government entities. You get a lot of nonprofits. They have a protecting culture for the high support, low challenge. So what we’re after is to go, “What would it look like if we can break leadership down into bite-sized nuggets and give people some aspiration?

To go, “No, no, no. What would it look like for you to be 100% healthy? And then multiply. Develop people. That’s a liberating culture. That is what 100X leaders do. That’s what we’re trying to do. Break it down, so it’s palatable and applicable, and you can do something with this tomorrow.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. That’s cool. I guess what resonate for me is thinking about entitlement in terms of I think I can have some of those tendencies with regard to being supportive and not so challenging in the sense of how intensely I articulate, what I expect, and what you’ve given me is unacceptable.

Jeremie Kubicek
That’s right.

Pete Mockaitis
I kind of hold back a little bit in terms of what I’m really thinking at times. Because I don’t want to be a total jerk face. But hey, that’s my Midwestern influence that’s in there.

Jeremie Kubicek
Yeah. But see, if you know that about yourself and all of a sudden, you start reflection going, “Ha! I do that work. What about my partner? Spouse? What about my kids? What do they think of me? “Hon, do I that there too?” Then you start noticing it with myself. What’s my tendencies and the way I treat myself? It’s interesting. We spend so many times with people who dominate themselves. That domination to themselves leads to abdication. I mean, so you get in to go, what would it look like to liberate yourself, to support yourself, and to challenge yourself?

So there’s all types of dynamics at play and we start taking leadership and go into this in you in the morrow of a person, and it starts to change the way they think. They become intentional, not accidental.

Pete Mockaitis
I hear you. Well, slow down, Jeremie. I’m sure there’s a lot of art in the details of the implementation of challenging and supporting effectively. I can think of some good ways to challenge and some good ways to support, and some bad ways to challenge and to support. So it’s a whole another two by two, I guess. Watch out for consultants and agency. Could you give us some perspectives in terms of maybe tips, tricks, scripts, counterintuitive tidbits in terms of here’s how you challenge really well or here’s what not to do when you challenge? Here’s how you support really well and what not to do when you support?

Jeremie Kubicek
Yeah. So a couple of things. One is, you have to understand your own tendencies and patterns first. Because we always – Here’s the tip. Support first before challenge.

Pete Mockaitis
Right.

Jeremie Kubicek
If people don’t know that you’re for them, they won’t receive your challenge very well. That’s number one. Number two, you need to use objective language, not subjective language. That’s why we’ve created The 100X Leader book because it’s full of visual tools and little axioms that you can use.

For instance, if I said this to you Pete, subjectively, “You know Pete, we’ve been working together for a long time and you’re a good guy, I just need you to step it up. I need you to get to the next level, just from a leadership perspective. So are we clear? Are we good?” Right?

Pete Mockaitis
No, Jeremie. We’re not at all.

Jeremie Kubicek
But do you see where I’m going? A lot of people, that’s what they get versus if I said this, “Hey Pete, we’ve been working together a long time. I still appreciate you. Here’s what I’ve noticed. I’m observing. You know the Support-Challenge Matrix, right?” Then I pull it out and I use that as the buffer. So I’m not the bad guy. The Support-Challenge Matrix is a mirror that’s in the book. It’s right there. You can visualize it.

And I go, “Sometimes, you have a tendency to be up here in the upper left corner. You bring a lot of support to people. They know your forum. But you’re leaving expectations out. Sometimes you turn into Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, and you don’t share your expectations. Then you kind of blow up a little bit. Then they feel like you went to domination.” So to be consistent would be at a place I’ve coached you.

So I’d like for you to consistently share your expectations with people. I want you to practice that. Pick so and so. Tell him what you expect. What are you looking for? Now, I’ve given the objective language. You don’t feel like I’m nagging you or giving you challenge. You don’t know what to do with it. I’m challenging you. But I’m providing enough support through objective language. Does that help?

Pete Mockaitis
I hear you. So you’re pinpointing the specific observation there. I guess if we had some more time and experience with each other, you could get even more precise. In terms of, Susie had no idea that you wanted ABC. When in fact, that was very important to you. And you were pretty cheesed off when things didn’t go as planned.

Jeremie Kubicek
That’s right.

Pete Mockaitis
That’s cool. Hey, do you have any additional perspectives in terms of how to support well and challenge well?

Jeremie Kubicek
Yeah. Here’s another. It’s a small axiom. But we find these axiom stay in people’s minds. I’m a big fan of Harvard. I love academics. I’m a big fan of Stanford and just the different reports. But those reports do not transfer very well. They don’t scale. Because they’re case studies, they’re too complicated. So we give little axioms. Here’s an axiom. “Pete, I want you to learn.” Or let’s just say all the listeners. Everyone listening. “I want you to learn how to call people up, not out.”

Call people up, not out. That means basically that they know that you’re for them. You’re going to basically call them up to who they are. Not call them out on what they did. So an example of that with my kids. It works great with kids. It works great with teammates. My daughter. Real quick story.

She just told me that she wanted to be a leader at the beginning of this year. She’s a junior in high school. “I want to be one of the leaders of our school. I think I can add a lot of value.” I’m like, “Okay. How are you going to do that?” Well, then a week later, some of our best friends call us and they found a video on their nest, a video from their front door, that our daughter had toilet paper dumped.

Pete Mockaitis
Oh man!

Jeremie Kubicek
So all of a sudden –

Pete Mockaitis
Now you have it.

Jeremie Kubicek
All of a sudden, what I wanted to say, I wanted to call her out. My calling out was, “Are you kidding me? What are you thinking? These are our best friends? How could you do this? […] one, it’s toilet paper. It’s not that big a deal. But what I did as I was using her own medicine, they go, “No, no. Call her up.” “Kate, hon, you told me that you wanted to be a leader, like this is who you are. What happened?”

So I allowed herself to call herself out. And I called her up and I gave her an opportunity to go, “Dad, I’m so sorry. That’s not who I want to be. You’re right. I told you this. I get it. It was a mistake. A little bit of peer pressure. Yeah, thanks. I get it.” If I’m always calling people out every time I’m around them, it’s kind of dominating them. I’m challenging them with not much support. If I’m calling them up, I’m giving them a roadmap to get to that level. It’s a simple little axiom.

Pete Mockaitis
Yeah. It reinforces their identity, such that they can try do some self-service there. So that they may don’t need you to always be the person calling them out. If you are calling them up, the identity is more rooted and become sort of like the thing that does the self-policing.

Jeremie Kubicek
That’s right. Exactly.

Pete Mockaitis
That’s cool. That’s a fun axiom. Give us some more please.

Jeremie Kubicek
Yeah. So when you think of it, we go – Expectations are another one to go. Most people don’t realize that they have expectations. So we created a simple little – It’s on page 123. It’s a little tool and it’s just managing expectations and some expectations scale that go – It should be right in the middle. Realistic. That if you go north, it goes unrealistic, and then it goes to impossible. If you go down, there’s limited and then resigned.

So part of the issue of leadership is that we have expectations that we don’t share and unmet expectations produce bitterness. So if you don’t share expectations, it’s not really fair. A lot of judgment takes place and a lot of subjective, a lot of drama happens because people just aren’t sharing their expectations appropriately.

Pete Mockaitis
Yeah.

Jeremie Kubicek
So we basically teach how to do that. The secret to developing others really is really you, getting really clear on your expectations about their development. A quick story on that. We’re just launching something called Giant TV. The idea of it is almost edutainment. It’s like Netflix for leadership. Okay? But it’s not just videos. It’s $9 a month, really inexpensive, but it’s a way for people to engage in development and growth.

Well, our team is very, very young in putting this together. So I just said, “You know what? I’m going to open source this.” One of our tools is called developing others. It’s basically using massless square and some other work on unconscious incompetence, conscious incompetence, conscious – Just all the way through the process. So I basically said, “Guys, here we go. Giant TV.” When we were developing this last summer, we’re unconsciously incompetent. I am too. We don’t know what we don’t know.

Well, we had all these ideas. Then we started doing them and we quickly got to conscious incompetence. Me sharing expectations, I said, “This is what winning looks like. If we can get 5,000 people on Giant TV, by this next summer, we’ll have won.” That’s the expectation. But I am consciously incompetent. I thought I knew what we were doing. So by me opening and sharing this out loud, it enabled our team to not worry about me.

Me as a leader, I could be a liberating leader, because I was basically showing them. But along the way, one of our guys, Jake. I said, “Jake, do you realize your unconscious incompetence here? Do you see it? And conscious competence looks like this. This is what it means to be successful. So let’s get you there and let’s work out loud to do that.”

So this style of leadership, it gives language to people and it gives visual tools to take away any potential drama or any potential frustration, where I might be frustrated with an employee and then start working around them, and then complaining about them, and ultimately having to let someone go. Instead, we openly talked about where we’re clueless. That’s what a 100X Leader will do.

Pete Mockaitis
Yeah. I hear you there. So I’m intrigued with the scale of expectations, going from resigned to limited, to realistic, to unrealistic, to impossible. How do you utilize that? So I think, “Hey, what are my expectations?” I just list them out and then I kind of put them on the scale like, “Oh! It turns out that’s an impossible expectation.”

Jeremie Kubicek
Okay. Let’s play. So all the listeners, let’s take three of the most important people in your life and/or your job. Okay. So let’s say maybe there’s a spouse. Okay. My wife, Kelly. That’s one. Let’s pick one of my kids and let’s pick one of my teammates.

Pete Mockaitis
The other kid is like, “Oh!”

Jeremie Kubicek
They’re probably like, “Good! I’m not there.” Then what I’m doing is that I’m looking at that role and I’m looking at the relationship and the responsibilities in those roles.

In fact, let me take my wife out. It’d be even harder. Let’s just start with one of my teammates. I’m going to say Mike. Mike leads our enterprise systems. I have a general expectation of what I think Mike can do and what our business can do. Is it realistic? Well, I’ve talked it out loud. He talks his vision out loud. We see is our vision matched up? It does. Is it realistic? We both feel that it is. We get outside counsel and benchmarking. We’re in the right ballpark. You know what? I think we’re on the same page for the vision. Now, we got to make it happen.

Now in six months, if we’re not meeting the vision or meeting those goals, and he knows they were realistic, then that’s an opportunity to grow. We’ve got to tweak something, work on something. But I’m openly talking about those expectations. So at any time, he knows where I stand. I think that’s the key. Most people don’t know where their boss stands. They get a lot of hints or they get a lot of grunts. But they don’t get a lot of like, “Tell me exactly what you expect to happen.”

Now, some of the expectations by some of us are impossible. Like no one can do that. If you benchmark that, it’s impossible. This is interesting. I find a lot of bosses, a lot of leaders, they think that they’re motivating by putting this massive goal out there. But inside and maybe to a few of their colleagues, they’re saying, “You know what? If they get half of that, I’ll be happy.” But what happens is, it’s actually – It’s not motivational. Because the person is going, “These are impossible. I’m not going to make it. I better start looking for another job.” So they should go.

Pete Mockaitis
on Indeed and LinkedIn.

Jeremie Kubicek
Yeah. So then it’s a self-fulfilling prophecy. Because this boss is sharing this big goal going, “I’ll be happy with half of it.” The other person is like, “There’s no way we can do. That’s impossible.” Then they check out and go look for someone else.  Then the boss goes, “Yeah. This guy’s not making it. You can’t find good help these days, can you?” That goes on and on and on.

So we’re basically saying, “Look, if you’re a leader, you’re a Sherpa.” Your job is to get the person you’re leading to the next level. Well, that means that they need to know that you’re for them. That you have to fight for their highest good. That you are giving them the right support and challenge based on what they need at the moment. Then you show them what’s undermining their influence and you work together to get to the next level.

I’ve been interviewing Sherpa after Sherpa on Mount Everest. That’s what they do. Basically, it’s not about how many times they’ve climbed the mountain. The Sherpa is fully-acclimated, because they’re born at that level. So they can go up and down, but their job is to get that person to the next level. That’s what a 100X Leader does.

Pete Mockaitis
Yeah. I really dig that in terms of these tools and axioms, and getting there. It’s cool that you – I respect that you did your homework and you talked to real Sherpas.

Jeremie Kubicek
Oh yeah.

Pete Mockaitis
“Hey, that sounds like a cool metaphor.” We’ll leave it at that.

Jeremie Kubicek
Yeah. I’ve been interviewing them on base camp and I’ve been talking to climbers, who’ve been climbing at 8,000-meter peaks. They will tell you, “There’s no way I could have done it without Vanuru […] or would no way I could have done it without so and so, the Sherpa. It’s just that that is the idea. So their appreciation for the Sherpa is amazing.

They also go, “Wow! It’s so much different.” For me, thinking about being a Sherpa to another climber. Because those are different skills. I’m convinced of it. In our service, in our free agent world, we’ve not been training people on leading as a Sherpa. We’ve mainly been training people to get to the top. “Okay. Great. You made it to the top. Good for you.” But your job is to take these people up the mountain, not just to get up yourself. So it’s a different dynamic.

Pete Mockaitis
Yeah. That’s powerful. So I want to hear about when it comes to the expectation. A part of it is just like, “All right. You sit down.” You say, “Here’s mine. What’s yours? You can check it with a third party. You feel good.” We have a handy little five-part categorization for them. In the process, we get them out in the open. Could you maybe catalog or prompt or tease? What are some key expectations that really need to get talked about that often don’t get talked about?

Jeremie Kubicek
Yeah. If it’s work, it’s going to be around what is success? What does it mean to win? That’s not talked about enough? How do I win? How does our team win? How does the organization win? In our expectations aligned there. But even to take it down to kids? How do we win? What does winning look like to the family dynamic? To your spouse, what does winning look like? To friends. Personally, what does winning look like?

So an example. This is me. Funny. But we have an event we just did in Cancun. It was a marriage retreat for our clients and they bring their spouses to learn our language. It’s really powerful. There are 40 couples. I’m taking my shirt off and I’d lost weight.

Pete Mockaitis
There you go.

Jeremie Kubicek
I’d lost some weight, Pete. But I wasn’t – Let’s just say, I’m not buffed, but I’m definitely better than I was the year before. But I, all of a sudden, look and go, “You know what? I want to have actually some muscles. I want to at least see one or two pack of muscle.”

Not six packs. It’s unrealistic. But is that an impossible goal? Or is it realistic between now and next February? I think it’s realistic. What am I going to do now? What’s my plan? What’s my team?

My point is I had expectations of myself. Historically, I’ve had expectations of myself on weight or health. I’ve not met them and I’ve dominated myself. So I’m listing my expectations by asking what does it mean to win and by when? So there’s a date with that. Well, the same is with people. I just don’t think there’s enough. I think we’re just so accidental when wake up. Most people wake up and just do their thing. They don’t think about this stuff.

So I think, if anything, The 100X Leader book prompts people to be intentional and think about things they’ve never thought about. But it also gives them tools to do something about it right then. You’ll see change happen right then. You don’t have to wait for nine months. You can teach the Support-Challenge Matrix. You know this as well as I do. When you teach something, you learn. So by teaching it to other people, you’ll start learning.

Pete Mockaitis
That’s good. Yeah. I’m loving this. What is success for the individual, for the team, for the organization? Can you share a couple more critical expectations that really need to be spelled out?

Jeremie Kubicek
Yeah. I’m going to give you an example. I have one guy. He’s gone from about 70%, maybe 60% healthy, and a little bit of a negative to about 90X right now. It’s a journey and a process. I’ve just used the tools to show him what it was like to be on the other side of himself. He realized he had unrealistic expectations from most people in his life. They mainly came out of insecurity. I’m like, “Why do you keep having these? Where is this coming from? He had basically – It goes into the law of self-preservation.

I asked these hard questions. “What are you trying to prove? What are you afraid of losing? What are you trying to hide?” When I asked that question, because I’m a confidant to him, he trusts me. Therefore, unbelievable amount of things started to come out. He’s trying to prove himself to a dad that he doesn’t like. He’s trying to prove himself to an industry, because he feels like his title means that he should produce at a level. He’s got a few things in his life that he was afraid of losing. So he was overcompensating through some arrogance.

Point is, all of that led to unrealistic expectations that got put on his team, because he wanted to be seen as the guy, and in the industry and his family. We’re like, “Do you see how this is affecting you? You’re not healthy and your team is not very healthy. They don’t necessarily want to work for you. They kind of have to work for you. Because they all need jobs and they’re –

It’s not bad enough that they’re looking for jobs, but they just kind of is.” That “aha” about a year ago got him to the place of like, “Hey, I want to get to the next level. What do I need to do?” So we spent nine months working on him. It wasn’t about them. It was him. I got a little letter from them about two weeks ago. The letter came from his senior leadership team and it’s basically like, “What have you done with him? We thought he had cancer or that he was leaving. He’s changed.”

It was transformation because he decided to be intentional and he decided to do something about it. But he really went after his insecurity. I was helping him through this process, figure out how he’d been dominating himself all because of this insecurity and the self-preservation.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, that’s a really intriguing insight that I guess you get from lots of experience, is that real big expectations that are dominating can often be caused by some of the stuff in terms of what are you trying to prove, what are you afraid of losing, and what are you trying to hide? That’s some sophisticated human insight, Jeremie. Can you give me one more before we hear some of your favorite things?

Jeremie Kubicek
Yeah. So what happened then in that is I helped him understand culture and that leaders define culture. So if he really, really wanted to have a legacy, if you wanted to be someone worth following, then he’s going to have to learn how to get past plus into multiplication. It’s radically affected that. So the metaphor we use there is Greenhouse. A great leader, a healthy leader, is like a good gardener. They’re looking at and their people are like plants. That plant needs water, and sunlight, and soil.

So an employee needs vision, encouragement, and time. So you can’t give what you don’t possess. In essence, what I was trying to do is show, “Look, you have all of these subcultures underneath you and your team. You have to be healthy to produce a greenhouse, a positive greenhouse. Not a toxic greenhouse.” So the positive greenhouse, that’s a liberating culture of empowerment, and growth, and opportunity. But that only means when you’re healthy. So that’s what’s cascading down into the organization.

So for anyone listening, you start with the idea of what’s it like to be on the other side of myself? What’s my tendency for myself? Am I dominating myself? What’s my tendency? What are my patterns? What are the actions? What consequences those lead to that are shaping my reality? If you want to change, then you change with support. Am I providing too low support? Am I providing too much challenge? How do I calibrate that with myself? What about my family? What about my team? And so on and so forth.

That’s holistic, because you think about life today. Today, everyone is holistic. People don’t compartmentalize like they used to do. So life affects us differently because of social media and everything else. So we want, holistically, you to be thinking about being a 100X Leader in every circle of influence. That only happens by being intentional, which then leads to consistency.

Pete Mockaitis
Good stuff, Jeremie. Well now, could you share with us a favorite quote that you find inspiring?

Jeremie Kubicek
Yeah. The phrase that I’ve used is, ”You can’t give what you don’t possess.” But the positive of that is, you give what you possess. I have a philosophy of give it all away. So giving yourself away for the benefit of others is just kind of a motif or a way that I’ve chosen to live. So that’s the phrase I use. It’s not necessarily an author, said by so and so. But it’s the phrase that is kind of an inspiration for me.

Pete Mockaitis
How about a favorite study, or experiment, or a bit of research?

Jeremie Kubicek
I love the study – The project, Aristotle, that came from Google recently that talked about teams and team culture. It basically surmised that the best teams in the world have psychological safety, which means, we have the ability to talk about things. It meant to me that support and challenge works. Because if I can challenge appropriately and you’re not going to get your feelings hurt. But if I’ve created a culture where we can both support and challenge, we can get more done. So I just appreciate the research they did.

Pete Mockaitis
That’s good. Thank you. How about a favorite book?

Jeremie Kubicek
Favorite book is a book by Chris Lowney called Heroic Leadership. It’s basically looking at the history of the Jesuits and how in the world in the 1500’s did the Jesuits build the largest organization, which is basically education world and the influence that a bunch of ragtag Jesuits have. It’s unbelievable read. Very inspiring. We based our business off of that book. It has really affected the way that we think about multiplication.

Pete Mockaitis
How about a favorite tool? Something that helps you be awesome at your job.

Jeremie Kubicek
Well, a favorite tool is going to be the Support-Challenge Matrix. Actually, I probably would say, for me, the liberating others tool is when I’m looking at people, am I fighting for their highest possible good? Do they need more support or challenge right now? What’s undermining their influence and do I have the guts to show them that? To get them to the next level?

I think that’s why people want me to be around them and want us as an organization to be around them. It’s because we have the guts to help them get to the next level. It’s that combination. It’s like this desire to fight and to serve. I just love that tool, that concept.

Pete Mockaitis
That’s a great turn of phrase. Do you have the guts to show them? It phrases it such that the challenge is internal. Not “Oh my gosh! How are they going to react?” But rather, “Are you going to rise to this challenge and do what’s right?

Jeremie Kubicek
That’s right.

Pete Mockaitis
It’s cool.

Jeremie Kubicek
That was it.

Pete Mockaitis
How about a favorite habit?

Jeremie Kubicek
A favorite habit is I have a kind of a normal flow. My habit is shower in the morning. Basically, when I turn the shower on, I go after any negative thought in the shower. It’s like the cleansing. I go, “What is the negative thought or what’s the thought that is not right that I don’t need to trust? So that shower, metaphor and a symbol, is I’m trying to cleanse my mind of the wrong thinking. So that’s my habit. I use the symbol of the shower to do that.

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

Jeremie Kubicek
The best way to do that is if you wanted to go to GiantSpeakers.com. That’s an easy one. Or they can go to Giant.TV. Those would be the easiest places to learn more about us.

Pete Mockaitis
Do you have a final challenge or call to action for folks seeking to be awesome at their jobs?

Jeremie Kubicek
Yeah. The final challenge would be simply explore what life might look like if you are more intentional in every circle of influence. Picture that you have a dimmer switch on your back. At the bottom, it’s accidental. At the top, it’s intentional. What would it look like if you move that lever all the way to the top?

Pete Mockaitis
Jeremie, this has been a treat. Thanks so much for taking the time. I wish you and The 100X Leader, and Giant all the luck in the world.

Jeremie Kubicek
Thanks so much, Pete. Sure. I appreciate it.

Apr 08
0

423: Becoming Free to Focus with Michael Hyatt

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Michael Hyatt says: "What I'm after is... the double win. I want to win at work, but I want to succeed at life. I'm not willing to compromise either."

Michael Hyatt offers useful concepts to upgrade your productivity and focus, including the  freedom compass, the zones of desire and drudgery, and more.

You’ll Learn:

  1. How to do more of what you want with the “yes, no, yes” formula
  2. Three beliefs that prevent you from delegating your tasks effectively
  3. How to feel like you’re winning each day with the daily big three

About Michael

Michael Hyatt is the founder and CEO of Michael Hyatt & Company, a leadership coaching and development firm twice listed on the Inc. 5000 list of fastest-growing US companies. A longtime publishing executive, Michael is the former chairman and CEO of Thomas Nelson, now part of HarperCollins. He is a New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and USA Today bestselling author of several books, including Your Best Year Ever, Living Forward, and Platform: Get Noticed in a Noisy World.
Michael is the creator of the Full Focus Planner, which combines quarterly goal-tracking and daily productivity in a proven system for personal and professional achievement. His blog and weekly podcast, Lead to Win, are go-to resources for hundreds of thousands of entrepreneurs, executives, and aspiring leaders. He has been featured by Forbes, Inc, Entrepreneur, Fast Companyand Wall Street Journal. Michael and his wife of 40 years, Gail, have five daughters, three sons-in-law, and eight grandchildren. They live just outside of Nashville, Tenn.

Items Mentioned in this Show:

Michael Hyatt Interview Transcript

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

Michael Hyatt
Thank you, Pete. I appreciate being on.

Pete Mockaitis
Oh boy. I think we’ll have a ton of fun. But first I want to hear about something fun in your life. You mention your dog, Winston, is exceptional in your About page and I want to know why.

Michael Hyatt
He’s the perfect dog. His temperament is fantastic. He’s just so easygoing. He always obeys. I don’t know. I feel like we won the lottery with him. He’s an amazing dog.

Pete Mockaitis
How did you get him?

Michael Hyatt
Well, we found out about a breeder in Indiana, who bred Australian Labradoodles. We got the dog from her. Then we sent him to a trainer in Indiana, a lady who actually is a Russian immigrant, who trains dogs for the federal government and for state agencies and therapy dogs and all that. She had him for about six weeks. I don’t know what she did, but some kind of Russian thing, but it’s amazing.

Pete Mockaitis
Oh Michael, I just love that so much because it’s like you eat, sleep, breathe people, development, and now even dog development. We’re going to find the best trainer in the world. We’re going to spend some deep focus time immersed and come back a renewed dog.

Michael Hyatt
Dog hacks. What can I say?

Pete Mockaitis
That’s fantastic. You’re unveiling some more wisdom in your latest book, Free to Focus. What’s the main idea or thesis behind this one?

Michael Hyatt
Yeah, the main thesis behind this is you can actually achieve more by doing less if you have the right productivity system. The problem with most productivity systems today is that they’re designed to make you more productive. Maybe you’re thinking, “Well, yeah, what’s wrong with that?” Here’s the problem.

People start out working a 12-hour day, they get some productivity hacks, adopt a few apps, they reduce it to eight hours and then they fill it up with more work. They try to be productive so they can be more productive.

I say productivity is a means to an end. You’ve got to be very clear about what the end is otherwise you’re just going to fill your life with work, you’re going to be overwhelmed, you’re going to be burned out, and you’re not going to get the kind of work-life balance that makes life rich and meaningful.

Pete Mockaitis
When you talk about defining the end, can you give us a couple of examples of how that gets articulated?

Michael Hyatt
Yeah, absolutely. In the first part of the book I talk about stopping and kind of taking stock. Get off that hamster wheel and ask, “Where’s this hamster wheel going? Why am I running this race? What’s it all about?” I say the end game needs to be about freedom. More productivity should lead to greater freedom and specifically freedom in four areas.

I talk about the freedom to focus. Focus is a super power today in our distraction economy. If you want to move the needle in your business and in your life, if you want your business to grow, if you want to get ahead in your career, you’ve got to be able to focus and do the deep work, the creative work that really creates the breakthroughs in your business and in your personal life. The freedom to focus.

You also need the freedom to be present so that when you’re at your son’s Little League game, you’re not on your phone thinking about work or you’re out for a day with your spouse or you’re significant other, you’re not thinking about work or when you’re at work, you’re not thinking about something that’s going off the rails at home. The freedom to be present.

Then third, the freedom to be spontaneous so that your life’s not so managed and not every last second is so planned that you just can’t stop and enjoy life, smell the roses so to speak.

Then finally, the freedom – and this is really underrated, but the freedom to do nothing at all. All the brain research says that we’re the most creative, we experience the biggest breakthroughs when our minds are the most relaxed. That means we’ve got to intentionally have that white space where we do nothing.

I learned this when I was in Italy a few years ago. They have a saying in fact. They talk about a dolce far niente, which means the sweetness of doing nothing. It’s true. You think about when you have the breakthrough ideas, the most creative ideas, often it’s in the shower or out for a walk or doing something that amounts to nothing. That’s what I’m after is freedom. I think productivity should lead to that.

Pete Mockaitis
That is a lovely turn of a phrase, the sweetness of doing nothing. I’m reminded maybe when you said Italy, it brings about images. I’m just thinking about just sort of strolling, just walking with a good friend, catching up and chatting. It’s like I enjoy doing nothing in those moments so much. It’s like I don’t even want to be burdened with having to think about where we’re going and where the restaurant is, just having faith that a good eatery will appear if that’s kind of what we’re up to. It’s much more fun.

Michael Hyatt
Yeah, and I don’t think they have bad food in Italy.

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, in Italy you’re covered. Sure.

Michael Hyatt
Yeah. Everything I ate there was phenomenal.

Pete Mockaitis
Totally. That’s cool. That’s the process in terms of the steps as we’re stopping. We’re taking stock. We’re pointing to greater freedom and a few kind of particular forms of freedom. What comes next?

Michael Hyatt
Yeah, in that same section, under Stop, talk about formulate, so formulate a clear vision for what your productivity, you want to accomplish with it. Then secondly, evaluate. This means taking stock of our workflow, our work style. I talk about a concept there called the freedom compass, which I think is really a big paradigm shift and a way to think about your work that makes it possible for you to focus on your highest and greatest work because not all work is created equal.

I talk about kind of a two-by-two matrix, where you have passion intersecting with proficiency. There’s some tasks – and imagine this rotated 45 degrees and you’ve got a compass, where true north is where your passion and your proficiency come together, the things you love, the things that you are deeply satisfying, that you enjoy, plus proficiency, the things that you’re good at.

Not just proficiency in your subjective opinion, but in an objective reality, where people are willing to pay you to do this. That I call the desire zone. That’s where you want to focus the bulk of your time and the bulk of your energy.

Directly south, directly below that is what I call the drudgery zone, things that you hate, you don’t have any passion around it and you’re not very good at. It’s going to be different for everybody, but for me it’s things that look like administrative kinds of activities, like managing my email inbox, managing my calendar, booking travel, even finding the FedEx box, just running errands. All that’s in my drudgery zone. It’s kind of a grind when I have to do that.

Then there’s also the disinterest zone, where you don’t have any passion, but you might be pretty good at it. A lot of people get trapped in this because maybe they were good at something, they lost the passion and they keep doing it because it keeps making them money, keeps bringing home the bacon.

For me, when I started out as an entrepreneur this was accounting. I did it because I didn’t want to pay somebody else to do it and I was really good at it, but I didn’t have any passion and that leads to boredom.

Then on the opposite side of the freedom compass from there, due west, would be what I call the distraction zone, where you like doing it, but you’re not very good at it and you end up escaping there and then it wasted a lot of time.

Again, the key, and it leads to the next part of the book, but the key is to eliminate everything that’s not in your desire zone, the things that you’re passionate about and proficient at, because that’s where you’re going to see the biggest growth, the biggest progress, the most results. That’s the chapter on evaluation.

Pete Mockaitis
That is a nice two-by-two matrix and a clever rotation that makes it a compass. When you talk about doing more of the good stuff and less of the drudgery, what are some of the best ways that we can accomplish that? You have some things about saying no and some things about outsourcing. How do we systematically get our proportions more and more in the desire space?

Michael Hyatt
Yeah. One of the things is I think to set ourselves up for success. That’s actually that third chapter in that first section before we get to the Cut section, which is about rejuvenation. This is one of those things that’s easy to overlook because we live in the hustle economy. We’re encouraged to burn the candle at both ends, to work evenings and weekends. Elon Musk said unless you’re working 80 to 100 hours a week, you’re not going to make the progress you need to.

One of the most important things you can do is take care of yourself if you want to be more productive. Getting a good night’s sleep, something as simple as that, can make the difference between whether you’re focused or productive the next day. I talk about sleep, nutrition, exercise, relationships. Those have a lot to do with how productive we are. That’s all the rejuvenation chapter.

But then moving into that second section, the section called Cut. The first one’s Stop. The second part of the framework is Cut. How do we prune all that stuff that’s not in our desire zone? It really does start with elimination. We’ve got to eliminate the stuff that doesn’t need to be done and the best way to do that is to head it off at the beginning by getting better at saying no.

Warren Buffet once said that “The difference between successful people and really successful people is that really successful people say no to almost everything,” but how do we do that without being a jerk? In the book, I talk about how to do that. I talk about how to give a graceful no. I talk about it using a formula called Yes No Yes. It’s the positive no that William Ury talks about in his book, The Power of a Positive No.

Let me illustrate. I spent most of my career in the book publishing industry. I still to this day get a lot of requests from aspiring authors, who would like me to review their book proposal before they send it to an agent or a publisher. Now, I don’t really have time to do that. I don’t want to be a jerk, but I don’t have time to do that. I have an email template that I use. I respond with that formula, yes, no, yes.

Here’s what it looks like. First of all, I start with an affirmation. I start off not resenting the fact that they asked me to review this proposal. But I’ll say something like, “Hey, congratulations. You’ve done what 97% of most aspiring authors will never do and that is create a written book proposal. That is a phenomenal first step. It’s a foundational step and an important one. Way to go.”

Then I move from the yes to the no. Here I want to give a very firm, unambiguous no, so there’s no misunderstanding. I’ll say something like this, “Unfortunately, in order to be faithful to my prior commitments, I have to say no.” I’ve made it very clear that I’m a person of integrity in terms of trying to be faithful to my other commitments, but I give them a firm no.

I don’t say, “Check back with me in a month. I’m a little busy right now,” because in a month it’s going to be the same story, so I might as well cut it off right now.

Then I end with a positive with a yes so that I leave a good taste in their mouth. I’ll say something like, “Best of luck with your publishing product. Let me know when it comes out. Can’t wait to pick up a copy. All the best. Thanks for honoring me with your request,” something like that.

I’ve never gotten a negative response when I follow up with an email like that. For the most part, people are just glad that they heard back from me because so often we send a request like that and we don’t hear because the person is procrastinating because they don’t know how to respond. They want to say no, but they don’t know how. I make it very clear.

Pete Mockaitis
Yeah, I really like that. I find that when you talk about we don’t know how to respond and we procrastinate, I find that I get a lot of requests, it’s sort of like someone’s presenting me with an opportunity, but I don’t think that they’ve given me nearly enough information to even evaluate if it’s worth talking for 15 minutes about the thing.

I’m trying to craft my TextExpander, generic response, which says, “I will need to know more before I can tell you whether or not I can talk to you about this,” which feels a little bit like, “Oh well, someone’s really busy,” but that’s really how I feel. It’s like “You know your product/service/offer better than I do. What you’re saying might be cool, but I really have no idea what this is supposed to be. Where’s the value here? Could you explain that so that I could tell you if we can find 15 minutes?”

Michael Hyatt
See, that’s a perfect example of what I talk about in the next chapter on automation, where you take something like TextExpander or you could use your email apps signature capability, but come up with a list of email templates so that you can respond to the most common kinds of requests so that you don’t have to create it from scratch every time.

I’ve tried to develop sort of this template mentality, where I ask myself if this task I’m about to do if I think I’m going to have to do it again in the future, why not take a few extra minutes now, do it right, save it as a template or a TextExpander snippet so that I can reuse it in the future and not have to reinvent the wheel every time.

For that example, a great way to deal with that using the Yes, No, Yes framework would be to say, “Hey, thanks for thinking of me for your podcast. I’m honored. I would be happy to consider it, but I need just a little bit more information.” Then you’d go through the information that you need and then let it go from there.

Pete Mockaitis
There you go. That is a nice sentence. “I’d be happy to consider it. I need some more information.” Tell me, what are some other top templates you find yourself using again and again?

Michael Hyatt
Well, here’s what I did, how I started this. This is probably about 15 years ago. I noticed that there was sort of a limited range of requests that I was getting. I would get requests from people who wanted me to consider a speaking engagement or wanted me to consider serving on a non-profit board or make a charitable contribution or just have coffee with me so they could pick my brain. There were about 40 or 50 of these as I catalogued them.

Then what I tried to do – I didn’t sit down and write all these templates at once – instead what I began to do is incrementally populate a template database. At the time I was using email signatures to do this. Now TextExpander makes it even cooler. But to write these one at a time until I had a library of templates.

Every time one of those requests comes in now, I look for the template where I can respond, very rare that I don’t have a template. Instead of taking 10 or 20 minutes, now it just takes a few seconds.

But it’s not just email. For example, I use Apple Keynote for creating slide decks. If I public speech that I’m going to give or a webinar that I have to give, I always start with a template, like with a webinar. I’ve got seven main parts to all my webinars. They always start the same way. They’ve got the same transitions and the same pivots and the same ending and all that.

It’s kind of like paint by numbers, but again, I’m starting with sort of that template mentality of if I’m going to do this again, how can I do it right the first time so I can reuse it, polish it, improve it, and get better at this and take less time as I do it.

Pete Mockaitis
There’s so much good stuff here. I want to dig in in all kinds of places, but it would be too scattered. First, let’s chat a little bit in the realm of going back to stopping for a moment. You mentioned rejuvenation. I think that we’ve heard from a few sleep doctors, a lot of good tips there and I’m a huge advocate for that. It’s so important.

But I want to get your take on when it comes to nutrition and exercise, boy, there’s a lot of advice out there. What have you found ultimately really yields good quality rejuvenation, energy, and freedoms?

Michael Hyatt
First of all, disclaimer, I’m not a physiologist or a doctor or a fitness trainer or any of that. What I do know is what works for me and I have studied a little bit.

But with regard to nutrition, I found that one of the best things to do is to really take it easy on the carbs. A high-carbohydrate diet creates a lot of problems in terms of focus and productivity. It’s why when we eat lot-quality carbs and we eat a lot of these kind of carbs like at lunch, like I’m talking about white bread, pizza, mashed potatoes, pasta, that’s why we kind of go into that funk in the afternoon and get sleepy because that turns to sugar very quickly. It burns up fast and it just doesn’t keep our blood sugar level at a level where we could be really productive.

One of the things I’ve done, and this is – I may lose some of your listeners here – but one of the things I’ve done for several months now is I’ve been on the keto diet. That’s a high fat moderate diet, a moderate protein, low carbohydrate diet. One of the things I had no idea about was how much brain fog I had until I started doing this diet.

It was actually developed back in the 1930s to help epileptic children deal with seizures. There’s a cognitive relationship between this diet, high fat, and your cognitive function. That’s been helpful to me.

I’m very careful about taking supplements, about checking my blood a couple times a week with my physical – or a couple times a week, a couple times a year with my physician, just making sure that my markers are right so that can serve as an early warning sign to head off problems before they happen.

Then I work out five to six days a week usually about an hour, three days of cardio, three days of strength training. All that just keeps my energy level up. It’s important to move in some way like that.

Pete Mockaitis
When you do the cardio or the strength training, what kind of intensity are you shooting for?

Michael Hyatt
Well, I would say moderate intensity. I’m kind of an achiever, so I’m always trying to beat my personal best. I feel like I’m in the best shape of my life that I’ve ever been in. I do work with a trainer, who prescribes a program for me. We get together once a month and reevaluate the program and see where I want to go from there.

I was training for a half marathon this spring, but I injured my foot, so I’m going to back that off till this fall. But typically what I’ll do on the cardio before I had the injury is that I’ll run about 30 minutes of interval training twice a week and then I’ll do a long run and a progressively longer run on Saturdays. Yeah, it depends on what I’m training for.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay, very good. Well, so now, talk about cutting again. You mentioned that there’s something that we should permanently remove from our to-do list, what is this?

Michael Hyatt
First of all, you should remove the drudgeries of stuff. That’s where you really start is with the drudgery zone activities. Those are not the best and highest use of you. They’re not going to create leverage in your business or your personal life. You’ve got to really focus on those desire zone activities.

Again, that begins with elimination and it goes to automation, and then that final chapter there is all about delegation, which one of the things I found with people that have businesses or leaders, until you can scale yourself, you can’t scale your business.

Pete Mockaitis
Understood. All right, so when it comes to that delegation, any particular tips in terms of where to get started if you’re having trouble letting go of anything?

Michael Hyatt
Yeah, I think the first thing that we’ve got to do, Pete, is confront sort of the limiting beliefs or the way that we think about delegation. In my experience with coaching now hundreds and hundreds of entrepreneurs there’s usually three sentences that rattle around in their head. The first one is “If I want it done right, I have to do it,” what?

Pete Mockaitis
Myself.

Michael Hyatt
Right. Or here’s another sentence that they have. This would be a second sentence. “It takes longer to explain how to do it. I might as well just do it myself.” Or they say, “I can’t really afford additional help right now. I guess I’m going to have to do it myself.” As long as yourself is at the center of all this, you’re not going to be able to grow, you’re not going to develop additional capacity, you’re not going to be able to accomplish what you want to accomplish.

Let’s look at those one at a time. To the person who says “It takes longer to explain how to do it. I might as well just do it myself,” it’s true. It does take longer to explain it the first time, but once you explain it the first time and give people an opportunity to do it so that they can be trained, then you save yourself all the time because you never have to touch it again.

“In terms of if you want it done right, you’ve got to do it yourself,” here’s the beauty of the freedom compass. What’s in your drudgery zone, might be in somebody else’s desire zone. If you hire right so that you have compatible people that offset what’s in your drudgery zone with what’s in their desire zone, then not only can they do it as well as you could do it, they can do it better than you could imagine doing it.

That’s basically how I’ve grown my entire business. I have 35 full-time people. Last year we grew 62%. I hire specifically for people that are doing their desire zone activities so that everybody’s functioning in their strengths and doing the things that they love and the things that they’re proficient at. That’s a real key.

Then the whole thing about affording, “I can’t afford somebody to do it,” you can take baby steps. I’m not advocating going out and hiring a big staff or even hiring somebody full time. You can start as a solopreneur or as a leader just with a part time virtual assistant. That’s how I started.

Back in 2011 when I left the big corporate world, where I was managing a large company where we were doing a quarter of a billion dollars a year and then I stepped into a solopreneur job, where I couldn’t even find a FedEx box. I had to start small. I hired a virtual executive assistant, who worked five hours a week. I did that for a couple of weeks. I saw the value of it. Then I upped their time to about 10 hours a week, then 15 hours, and 20 hours.

But here’s how the conversation often goes. I had a client by the name of Greg. Greg said, “Look, I’ve got a business where I have to have a web presence. I know just kind of enough about web design and web development to do it myself. It’s probably not the best use of my time, but I really don’t feel like I can afford somebody else to do it now.”

I said, “Well, let me ask you a question, Greg. How much do you bill for? What’s your hourly rate?” He said “150 dollars an hour.” I said, “Okay.” I said, “What would it cost you to get a WordPress developer, somebody that was really good that knew what they were doing? They could do a little bit of design work too.” He said, “Probably 50 dollars an hour.” I said, “Then why are you paying somebody 150 dollars an hour that you admit isn’t that good?”

The lights went on. He went, “Wow.” I said, “If you hired somebody at 50 dollars an hour, it would free you up to bill for that additional time and you’d come out ahead 100 dollars an hour.” That’s how we have to think about delegation. It requires an investment first, but boy, that’s when we begin to reap the rewards and that’s when we begin to clone ourselves in a sense because we’ve got other people that are helping us.

Pete Mockaitis
For folks who are professionals and not business owners, what are some key things you’d recommend they delegate?

Michael Hyatt
I think the same thing. Go back to the freedom compass. Start with the drudgery zone because your company is probably not paying you to do those things that you don’t love and those things that you’re not proficient at. If they are, you’re in the wrong job. Get rid of those things because it’s not the best and highest use of you.

Then go to the disinterest zone, then the distraction zone. Again, focus on those few things that really create the leverage, the things that your employer thinks the results you ought to be delivering. That’s where you’re going to see the advance in your career.

Pete Mockaitis
Very good. When it comes to cutting, how do you recommend we cut distractions?

Michael Hyatt
Well, you’ve got to have an offensive plan to begin with. I talk in the book about how to design your quarter, how to design your week and how to design your day. Once you have a good offensive plan, then you’ve got to come up with a defensive plan for the interruptions. I distinguish between interruptions and distractions, two different things.

Interruptions are the external things. It’s people dropping by to visit. It’s that text message you get. It’s people interrupting you. I often talk to leaders who say, “I can’t get my own work done because I’ve got so many people interrupting me to help them with their work.” I think one of the best strategies is to have an offense on those two.

First of all, schedule time to get your most important work done. Make it a commitment and put it on your calendar. What gets scheduled is what gets done.

Then, preempt those interruptions by going to the people who are most likely to interrupt you, and you know how they are, go to those people and say, “Hey, look, I’m about to do some really important, focused work. It’s important that I don’t get interrupted, but I want to be available to serve you, so are there any questions you have, anything I can help you with before I go into this session?”

Pete Mockaitis
All right.

Michael Hyatt
This is awesome because, now all of the sudden, you’ve put them on notice and you’ve also not been a jerk about it. You’ve communicated that you want to help them, but you kind of want to do it on your terms.

Then you’ve got distractions. Now distractions are all the stuff that look external, but are really a problem with ourselves with self-control. This could be jumping over to Facebook. The problem is we’ve got multi-billion dollar-social media companies, who are doing a tremendous amount of research and whose entire business model is built on high jacking our psychology and manipulating our dopamine.

They want us to spend as much time on those platforms as possible. Why? Because they’re repackaging our attention and they’re selling it to the highest bidder in the form of advertisers. We have to combat that. The best way to do it, I think, is to use technology to fight technology.

For example, my smartphone, it looks like a really cool device. It does a gazillion things. I’ve got an iPhone XS Max. It does a bazillion things, but it’s a very sophisticated distraction device if I’m not careful. On my phone, I’ve removed email. I’ve removed Slack, which is our internal communication program. And I’ve removed all social media with the exception of Instagram because I’m trying to build my Instagram following.

But even there I’ve used the technology to fight technology. I go into settings, screen time, and I limit my use of Instagram to 30 minutes a day. Even better, I gave my phone to my wife and I said “Set a passcode for that so that I can’t cheat and don’t tell me the passcode.” When my time is up on Instagram, my time is up.

There’s a great app for the desktop that works on Windows or Mac or any platform called Freedom. You can find it at Freedom.to. I don’t have any relationship with them except that I use this program and love it. But it allows you to selectively turn off apps and websites for a specific period of time, which allows you to stay focused when you do your most creative breakthrough kind of work.

The only way to defeat Freedom is to completely reboot your computer. That gives me just friction so that I can remember my intention that I’m trying to get focused work done. It enables me to avoid the distraction.

Pete Mockaitis
Excellent. What do you think about mindfulness practice when it comes to building the capacity to resist distraction?

Michael Hyatt
I think it’s really important. I meditate every morning for 15 minutes. It just gives me the opportunity to collect my thoughts, to kind of get centered, to get focused, to get re-connected with my most important priorities. Again, it kind of goes back to the freedom that I talked about before, the freedom to do nothing. It’s often underrated.

Pete Mockaitis
Now, I’d love to dig in for a moment now. When you say meditation, are you referring to more of a mind training exercise or more of a prayer exercise?

Michael Hyatt
Well, I actually do both. I do pray. I also do just straight up meditation. I use an app called 1 Giant Mind. Are you familiar with that?

Pete Mockaitis
I know a couple. I don’t know that one.

Michael Hyatt
It’s awesome. If you’re familiar with Headspace-

Pete Mockaitis
Right.

Michael Hyatt
It’s kind of similar to that, but I actually like it better and it’s free. But 1 Giant Mind. It has 12 initial lessons and then you can go into a 30-day challenge, but the instruction is fantastic.

Pete Mockaitis
Oh lovely. Well, thank you. I’ve enjoyed a little bit of all of them in terms of Calm, Simple Habit, Headspace. They all give me a little bit of a different perspective. I go, oh yeah, that’s a really good one. Thank you. Much appreciated. We’ll check out another one. Cool.

Michael Hyatt
That’s right.

Pete Mockaitis
All right, so we talked about stopping. We talked about cutting. Now what?

Michael Hyatt
Yeah, so now we get to that third section of the book, which is called Act. It’s a little bit counterintuitive because you’d think that Act ought to come first, but I find that you’ve got to stop, kind of reflect where you want to go, then you need to cut or prune because anything that’s healthy has to be pruned from time to time, but now it’s time to act.

Now, hopefully, you’ve gotten rid of all the stuff that’s in your drudgery zone, a lot of the stuff in your disinterest and distractions zones and now we’re going to focus on how to get more done in your desire zone, the things that you love and the things that you’re good at. That begins with a chapter called consolidate. This is all about designing your ideal week.

The idea is that you want to design a week as if you were in 100% control of your time and resources. What would that look like? If you really wanted to give it some intelligent design and not just be reactive to what came over the transom and schedule those things, but actually we’re very proactive about it.

Here’s how mine works for example. First of all, I’m going to start with on Mondays is when I have my internal team meetings. I batch all these together for one simple reason. It’s the concept of context switching.

In other words, anytime I switch a context, for example, I go from a meeting to I go to some time where I’m working on a project to maybe I’m going to record some video, anytime I go to a different context, there’s a certain amount of ramp up time, a certain amount of time to kind of get into the groove, find my equilibrium and get into flow. Well, the less you can do that, the more momentum you can build.

When I get into that space in my head of meetings and I’m in meeting mode, then I just batch them altogether. Internal meetings are all on Monday.

Tuesday, is all about what I call backstage time. This is my time for preparation on the front stage. Everybody’s front stage is going to look different, but the front stage is what your employer or your clients are paying you, that’s what you’re delivering, but there’s always some backstage work that has to be done in order to do that.

If you’re a lawyer, for example, your front stage might be arguing a case before a court or negotiating a contract on behalf of a client, but there’s a lot of research in the backstage that has to go into that preparation. For me, Tuesday is all about that preparation.

Wednesday and Thursday for me are front stage activities. For example, when I record my podcast, I do that in a day and a half once a quarter and I record 13 episodes in a row. It takes me a day and a half, but then I don’t think about it for another quarter. I get into that headspace and I stay focused and knock it out.

Then on Friday is when I try to consolidate my external meetings. If anybody wants to meet with me, they come in from out of town or a vendor or a client or whatever, I try to move those to Friday. Why? Because I don’t want those meetings interrupting my progress on my front stage days or my back stage days.

Then, of course, I have – and a lot of people don’t know about this – but there’s actually an offstage. All of life doesn’t have to be work. On the weekends, on Saturday and Sunday for me, I’m not thinking about work. I don’t talk about work. I don’t read about work. I don’t do work. Why? Because I want to get back in on Monday morning totally rejuvenated and ready to hit the ground running.

That for me is my ideal week. This could be a game changer for people to begin to get some sense of control back. I would say, Pete, probably in any given week, I’ll probably approximate that about 80%. Things are going to happen. I don’t try to be legalistic about it. But boy, going into the week with a plan is a whole lot better than just reacting to what comes over the transom. Does that make sense?

Pete Mockaitis
I like that a lot. Yes. What do you think about in terms of total hours of work in a day and a week, energy levels and optimizing that?

Michael Hyatt
Yeah, I keep my work to 40 hours a week. I can tell you that the science and I quote it in the book, but once you get past about 55 hours a week, there’s an inverse relationship between the amount of time you work and the level of productivity you have. It actually goes backwards after you give 55 hours. There’s been a lot of study done on this.

But the average person is buying into what I call the hustle fallacy, where you’ve got to work 80 hours, you’ve got to work 100 hours. That’s a recipe for burnout. It’s also a recipe for screwing up your life, screwing up your health, screwing up your most important relationships.

What I’m after, personally, is what I call the double win. I want to win at work, but I want to succeed at life. I’m not willing to compromise either for the sake of the other one.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, so I’d love to get your take, I don’t know if you would liken yourself to this, but I think of, hey, Michael Hyatt, Elon Musk, two titans, very different perspectives. I guess, when it comes to Elon Musk it’s like I cannot deny that is one successful dude, who has made a lot of things happen and he espouses very much the hustle mentality.

Michael Hyatt
He does.

Pete Mockaitis
How do we reconcile that?

Michael Hyatt
Well, I think it depends on you define success. He’s blown through a couple marriages. He, by his own admission, doesn’t talk to his kids hardly. He’s sleeping at the factory so much so that his fans started a Kickstarter page to buy him a new couch, kind of as a joke, so he’d have something better to sleep on. He’s appeared in the media and said some crazy things, which have led even to fines from the SEC and other federal agencies.

I think it depends on how you define success. Look, I’m not holding myself up as a paragon of virtue, but here’s the thing. Here’s what’s possible. Last year I took off 160 days, now that counts weekends, so 160 days including a one-month sabbatical, which I’ve done every year for the last eight years and my business grew 62%.

Pete Mockaitis
Awesome.

Michael Hyatt
I really think this idea of achieving more by doing less – the hustle fallacy, I want to keep my health. I’d like to live a long time. I’ve been married for 40 years, almost 41 years. I have 5 grown daughters, who I adore and who like me. This doesn’t just happen by chance. It’s not because I’m lucky, but I’ve tried to focus on those things.

Again, I’m not trying to hold myself up as the paragon of virtue, but I’m just saying that there’s a different model for success than the one that Elon Musk espouses. I’m not trying to judge him, but just look at the fruit, look at the results.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. Well done. Thank you. Well, tell me before we sort of shift gears and do your favorite things, any sort of key mistakes folks make when they’re trying to say, “Heck yes, I want to get free to focus and do these things.” What are some roadblocks or some fumbles folks make along the way as they’re trying to enact this stuff?

Michael Hyatt
Well, I think the biggest tip I can give people is to get a plan for your day. This is where you’re going to get the biggest leap forward. I advocate something called the daily big three. Here’s how it goes for most people. They start the day – if they have a to-do list, and not everybody works with a to-do list, which is also a guarantee for being reactive, but let’s say you have a to-do list. The average person’s going to have somewhere between 20 and 25 items on that list.

Pete Mockaitis
No kidding.

Michael Hyatt
Yeah. Before they begin the day, they’re already feeling overwhelmed, like there’s no way that I can accomplish what’s on my list. They get to the end of the day and even if they’ve done half of it, where do they focus? On the half they didn’t get done. They go to bed defeated. This becomes a vicious cycle. It creates a lot of dissatisfaction, a lot of frustration and ultimately leads to burnout.

But the problem is they’ve created a game, they’ve set themselves up to fail by creating a game that they can’t possibly win. What I suggest is instead of that, go ahead and identify the three highest leveraged tasks that you can do today. Not all tasks are created equal. We know from the Pareto principle that 20% of the effort drives 80% of the results.

Let’s just go ahead on the front end and say “What are the three most important things that I can do today?” Now all of the sudden that seems manageable. At the end of the day when I accomplish those three things, even if I didn’t do all the other trivial things, at least I got the most important things done.

You do three important tasks like that a day, you do it 250 days a year, which is the average number of workdays people have, that’s 750 important things per year. That, more than anything else, will give you a sense of control and give you a sense that you’re winning. When you feel like you’re winning, it builds your confidence and it builds your momentum.

Pete Mockaitis
Yes. I like feeling like I’m winning. Well said.

Michael Hyatt
Me too. Me too.

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

Michael Hyatt
Yeah. I think one of my most favorite quotes is one by Warren Buffet. He said that “The difference between successful people and really successful people is that really successful people say no to almost everything.”

Pete Mockaitis
Beautiful. How about a favorite study or experiment or bit of research?

Michael Hyatt
I would say the research that I’ve done into sleep has been probably the most rewarding, especially into naps because I sort of knew intuitively that napping was a powerful way to rejuvenate and kind of reboot in the middle of the day. I’ve faithfully practiced it for about 30 years.

I took a nap today, so between interviews I laid down for 20 minutes, fell to sleep – I trained myself to fall to sleep quickly – I wake up and I’m a little bit groggy maybe for about ten minutes or so, drink a cup of coffee, and then it’s like I’m rebooted.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, now I want to know, how do you train yourself to fall asleep quickly?

Michael Hyatt
It’s not unlike training yourself to meditate. I don’t put a lot of pressure on myself to fall asleep. What I do is kind of try to focus on my breathing and focus on relaxing. If you do that and do it routinely, you’ll find yourself falling asleep. If you don’t fall asleep, it’s still rejuvenating, even if you do nothing but put your feet up and relax.

Pete Mockaitis
How about a favorite book?

Michael Hyatt
I’m one of those guys, I read a ton. I tend to focus on the books that I’ve read most recently. The book that I love that I just finished here about two weeks ago was Digital Minimalism by Cal Newport. Have you read that?

Pete Mockaitis
I have perused it. Can you tell me maybe a takeaway that was particularly valuable for you?

Michael Hyatt
Yeah, the biggest one was on the value of high-quality leisure, so really being intentional about your leisure time and how it correlates to our work, it makes us more productive at work. But that was really challenging and really exciting to think about.

Pete Mockaitis
How about a favorite tool, something that helps you be awesome at your job?

Michael Hyatt
Let me think here for a second. I would say the tool that I’m enjoying the most right now is a tool called Notion. Have you heard of it?

Pete Mockaitis
No.

Michael Hyatt
Notion is kind of like a personal Wiki. It could be. A lot of people are using it as an Evernote replacement. I’m still using Evernote, but only as a digital junk drawer. Notion is where I put structured information, information I want to get back to. It’s a whole lot of fun. It’s an outstanding tool.

Pete Mockaitis
Interesting, thank you. How about a favorite habit?

Michael Hyatt
A favorite habit without question is my morning routine, just going through my drill every morning, setting myself up for high performance. Again, I learned this from the world of athletics, where the world’s best athletes have a pre-game ritual. I think of my morning time as a pre-game ritual. That’s the time when I’m going to pray, the time I’m going to meditate, the time I’m going to exercise and get fueled for the day.

Pete Mockaitis
Is there a particular nugget you share that really seems to connect and resonate and get quoted back to you frequently?

Michael Hyatt
I think it’s that one about winning at work and succeeding at life. I think that with my clients, that’s just captivated their imagination and gets them really excited because I think most people have kind of fallen into this idea that you’ve got to give up one or the other. You can’t have both. I think when people are given a model, and that’s what I try to do in the book, Free to Focus, for how that can be done, it resonates with people.

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

Michael Hyatt
Well, in terms of the book, I would go to FreeToFocusBook.com. It has links to all the places where you can buy the book, but more importantly, it also has 500 dollars’ worth of free bonus material related to the book that you can get just by turning in your receipt. That’s all you’ve got to do. Turn in your receipt, claim the free bonuses. It has some amazing stuff including the audio version of the book for free. Then for all things related to me, just MichaelHyatt – Hyatt with a Y, not an I – MichaelHyatt.com.

Pete Mockaitis
Do you have a final challenge or call to action for folks seeking to be awesome at their jobs?

Michael Hyatt
Yeah, I would say that in this kind of distraction economy where people are so sidetracked and there’s so much sideways energy and so much fake working going on, if you can learn to focus, that could become a super power.

I would just encourage people to differentiate themselves from their competitors and from their peers by being the person that really can deliver the highly creative, deeply important work that moves their business forward, that moves their personal work forward because so many people are sidetracked and distracted. You can differentiate yourself and make a real difference in the world.

Pete Mockaitis
Beautiful. Michael, this has been a ton of fun. Thanks so much for taking the time.

Michael Hyatt
Thank you, Pete. Appreciate it.

Apr 01
0

420: How to Break Free from Distracting Devices with Brian Solis

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Brian Solis says: "There has to be a much more mindful approach to how we use technology... in a sense, it's taking control of us and we have to take control of it."

Brian Solis interlinks procrastination, distraction, and device-related addiction to show how they rob us of productivity and happiness.

You’ll Learn:

  1. The biochemical forces that rewire your brain when exposed to social media
  2. The key thing you must do  to reclaim your attention
  3. Why devices are often thieves of our own happines

About Brian

Brian Solis is Principal Analyst and futurist at Altimeter, a Prophet Company, a keynote speaker and best-selling author. Brian studies disruptive technology and its impact on business and society. In his reports, articles and books, he humanizes technology and its impact on business and society to help executives gain new perspectives and insights. Brian’s research explores digital transformation, customer experience and culture 2.0 and “the future of” industries, trends and behavior.

Items Mentioned in this Show:

Brian Solis Interview Transcript

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

Brian Solis
Pete, it’s honestly my pleasure. I’m really looking forward to this.

Pete Mockaitis
Oh yes, well me too. I’m excited to dig into the wisdom of your book, Lifescale, but I understand that this is personal for you. Can you tell us the story of how distractions were impairing your life?

Brian Solis
Oh yeah. Well, it’s my favorite subject, kind of fall on the sword and be vulnerable to everybody, but in all seriousness, it was not the book that I set out to write. In fact, I was trying to write another book on innovation and just couldn’t really get past the proposal stage. For the first time in my life I was stuck and couldn’t figure out why and had wondered if this is what writer’s block had felt like or if I was just stretched too thin.

But long story short, after a whole bunch of research and time of reflection and introspection, I’d gotten down to the bottom of the fact that I wasn’t able to get into the flow like I used to because I completely changed my life. At that point, when I started writing the proposal, it had been two years since the previous book had published. Before that, each subsequent book had been a little harder and harder to write.

This time was the first time I couldn’t get past the proposal stage. I had just basically succumbed to all of the digital distractions that define my life. In the time that I had written the last book, I had grown exponentially on platforms. I was using my phone more and more and more and it had an incredible effect on depth and creativity and flow and productivity in ways that I just didn’t realize until I had to go back and dive deep or try to.

Pete Mockaitis
That’s interesting, so you’re kind of a victim of your own success. You had so many fans, followers, et cetera, that there’s just more to respond to and more potential for beeps and buzzes and claims of your attention.

Brian Solis
Yeah, absolutely. Not only that, but with that pressure of maintaining a presence and also trying to stay relevant and continue to build that audience because there’s always somebody or something new to follow or at least be entertained by.

The other side of it is the dark side of digital, which is what it does to your brains. It rewires it. It makes it operate it much faster. It makes it jump around from task to task to give you sort of the semblance of multitasking, but essentially all you’re really doing is task hopping. It sort of drives you to float at a much more superficial level rather than allowing you the freedom and space to dive deeper and be content there.

I could list out a million different things that it does to you, but it also affects you chemically.

Pete Mockaitis
You mentioned that it rewires your brain, these digital devices and these interactions. Can you share with me perhaps one of the most frightening bits of research or studies that points to this phenomenon?

Brian Solis
Oh my goodness, well, there’s so many. Just going outside of the brain rewiring thing. For example, if you use social media quite a bit, whether it’s Facebook or Instagram, one of the things that tends to happen is that when you post something or based on the designs of those apps, they are designed to create micro doses of anxiety.

For example, if you open the app, there’s going to be a millisecond delay before you see how many new notifications you have. That’s meant to sort of create this sense of anticipation so that when you see that number, you feel like you’ve won. In that moment what it’s doing is unlocking a series of six different chemicals within your body.

Also the same types of chemicals swoosh about you when you do get a new like or when you do get a new follower or when people are connecting with you, so essentially getting these micro doses of the semblances of joy or happiness or validation or connection or desire. Your body learns to crave that, not unlike smoking or not unlike other types of drugs or alcohol that your body just starts to produce these chemicals in the absence of using those apps that sort of feed that addiction for you to come back.

That over time plays out in all kind of things. For example, I studied the effects of Instagram and Snapchat on a woman’s definition of beauty and also the effects on their self-esteem. I wish I could publish the results, but I will say this is that it’s not good. It leads to all kinds of things and not just loneliness, but depression.

Because if you think about it, there’s this sense of them trying to always keep up with what the internet’s standard of beauty is or whomever you follow and what that standard is. Even then it’s not necessarily always a real standard. They might be using FaceTune as a way of sort of making themselves slimmer or more attractive or younger.

This is also creating new types of plastic surgery products that are catering to what’s called dysmorphia or filter dysmorphia or in some cases, Snapchat dysmorphia because people want to look the way that they do in, let’s just say, their selfies self, their aspirational self.

Pete Mockaitis
Wow, that’s so fascinating. I guess I didn’t realize that the platforms deliberately put in a little bit of a gap before you saw the notifications. I just thought that that was dumb like, “Didn’t you know that’s what I wanted to see first? How come I have to wait for this?” It’s like, “No, it’s by design, Pete.” Now I know.

Brian Solis
Yeah, Pete, it’s by design. It’s even worse, it’s called persuasive design. It’s actually taught at Stanford University. It goes further than that. Some of the techniques that they use are also for example, called variable intermittent rewards, which are designed to emulate the types of things that go into, for example, digital slot machines or even analog slot machines. It’s really meant to kind of cater that every time you use it, you feel like you are you.

I’ve called this sort of resulting circumstance accidental narcissism because everything that you do in these platforms essentially tells you that you’re the most important person in the world. If you don’t like what you see online, so for example, if you post something that really mattered to you, but you didn’t get enough likes or reactions to it, chances are you’re probably going to delete it because that’s not your best foot forward, at least in the way that you think about it.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. Well, so there we go. There’s some formidable biochemical forces at work when it comes to these devices and social media accounts and generating some addictive stuff. Tell us, what have you found are the most powerful practices to get liberated from this and reclaim your power to focus?

Brian Solis
This is a challenge that I face with this book as well is how do you sell a book to people who don’t necessarily realize that they’re distracted or suffering from any of this. In total honesty, as I mentioned earlier, I didn’t know I had a problem until I failed in a pretty significant life milestone. I would hate for anybody else to kind of have to get to that point. I want everybody to optimistically or proactively come to this conclusion on their own.

I share this with you because, for example, Google and Apple are putting what they’re calling digital wellness tools inside of your smartphones that sort of document how much time you spend on your phone every day or your tablet, where you’re spending all of your time.

I’ve noticed in many cases in my – it’s called digital anthropology – in my work that people don’t necessarily see that as a bad thing. They see it almost as a badge.

Somebody I talked to while I was at South by Southwest recently told me, “My gosh, these digital wellness tools are killing me. It told me yesterday that I spent over five hours, over five hours. Can you believe that?” And not once in the conversation did they say, “I need to change,” or that there’s a problem or-

Pete Mockaitis
Just like, “How about that?”

Brian Solis
Yeah, pretty much. To get to the answer of your question, there has to be a much more mindful approach to how we use technology. I’m not asking anybody to disregard it. I need it in my work and in my world. But we have to take a much more mindful approach to how we use it. In a sense, it’s taking control of us and we have to take control of it.

Even getting there, it’s even in the smallest of things. It’s starting to build the muscle memory and the expertise and the rigor to be able to just focus on one thing, whether it’s mono-tasking or whether it’s some type of exercise or whether you’re practicing meditation.

Whatever it is, just focus on one thing for at least – studies show at least 25 minutes to build that discipline so that you aren’t getting pulled in a million different directions because if you are getting pulled in a million different directions all the time, you’re never building the skillset necessary to be more creative.

Creativity is what the world needs now in a time where everybody’s using filters or augmented reality, where artificial intelligence and machine learning is starting to take and automate everybody’s jobs. This is the time for creativity because creativity is the source of innovation and that’s what we’re trying to get to.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay, so you’re saying it’s just sort of like building a muscle. You’ve got to go ahead and challenge yourself to focus on one thing, be it mediation on a given task for at least 25 minutes in order to get some gains bro.

Brian Solis
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Absolutely.

Pete Mockaitis
Then I’m also curious when it comes to taking breaks, like if you want to have more rejuvenation and restoration to have more creativity, I’m guessing you wouldn’t recommend, “Hey, check out what’s on Facebook,” as a refresher. What would you recommend instead?

Brian Solis
I’ll tell you this. One of the stats that blew me away was every time you reach for your phone – and look, the first couple of times I tried using what was called the Pomodoro Technique, which is a little tomato kitchen timer, a little analog thing, but they make digital versions. The first time I tried to focus for 25 minutes, I was reaching for my phone without a notification. That was the muscle memory I was working against.

Stats show that when you allow yourself to break free in a moment like that, it takes about 23 minutes or so to get back to work. Your body has to just sort of shift its gears because what’s happening is when you’re shifting tasks, you’re actually – there are nutrients in your brain that you’re using up and you’re having to sort of refocus it into a certain area where you were before and that takes time. That also depletes those nutrients over time. They say you’re freshest in the day.

But ultimately, one of the things that I learned here and I hope this answers your question, Pete, is you have to want to get your task done and not only get it done, but get it done in the uniqueness of you so that it stands out in a world where everybody is really starting to look the same. As amazing as everybody’s life looks online, it’s pretty much all the same.

You have to express yourself in the truest sense of you. You can’t do that if you don’t know who you are outside of what you’re trying to project and also if you don’t know what you’re capable of.

Pete Mockaitis
I dig it. Well, Brian, tell me, anything else you really want to make sure to mention before we hear a couple of your favorite things?

Brian Solis
Yeah. One of things that I found was that we tend to procrastinate more because it’s really so hard to shift and focus. It’s actually easier to give yourself to distractions and notifications and also because we’re chemically drawn to it. In a sense, we’re addicted without understanding that we’re addicted. We were sort of subjected to those designs that got us there. It wasn’t really our choice to get there.

But what happens over time is that procrastination becomes sort of this subconscious attempt to avoid those unpleasant emotions or those unfamiliar disciplines that we sort of lost or gave up in exchange for our devices.

There was this quote that I had stumbled on from Muhammad Ali that said he hated every minute of training, but he told himself not to quit. The suffering that he was going through now, he was going to be able to live the rest of his life as a champion. That got me to think about whether it’s my work or your work or whatever it is that we’re trying to do, individuality really is a competitive advantage.

Also, creativity is, honestly, a scientifically-proven key to happiness. If you can’t visualize what it is that you want to achieve and why, then you can’t appreciate it and you can’t learn and you can’t build upon it to celebrate it. Essentially, that means that the devices and our relationship to them become sort of thieves of our own happiness.

That’s what I want to leave everybody with is that really what we’re talking about is not just taking control of technology, but actually living a happier, more creative life that we get to say what we use technology for and how and why and what we get express that’s uniquely us and then and only then can we live our truly best life.

Pete Mockaitis
Well said. Thank you. Now could you share with us a favorite quote, something you find inspiring?

Brian Solis
I think it was that Muhammad Ali quote, but I think I have another one too. It was this quote from one of the designers, who shall be unnamed, who was basically whistleblowing on the whole industry about the techniques they use to define some of our favorite apps and it was that “We were given the power of the gods without their wisdom.”

Pete Mockaitis
That is nice. Thank you. How about a favorite tool, something that helps you be awesome at your job?

Brian Solis
I started with this Pomodoro Technique to build that discipline down to 25 minutes, but I also found the equivalent in vinyl, listening to vinyl again. One side of a record is roughly about 25 minutes.

The process of focusing for 25 minutes is fantastic, but also the physical routines that you go through to pull that vinyl out of its sleeve and kind of enjoy the senses of the smell and the feel and putting that needle slowly down on the disk and hearing the crackling a bit. It’s also very cathartic and therapeutic. You build this muscle set, but you also calm your mind into this way of being able to jump into a much deeper way of work much faster.

Pete Mockaitis
That’s cool. I haven’t heard that as a tool before. Vinyl, awesome. How about a favorite habit?

Brian Solis
A new favorite habit that was an old favorite habit has been the arts. I grew up playing guitar and sort of shelved it in favor of chasing a paycheck. What I had slowly lost in my life was that sense of artistry that really unlocks parts of your brain that you can’t really get to without it.

I’ve started playing around with all kinds of different things like I’m not even an illustrator or an artist in any way shape or form, but I try to pretend like I am one. I’ll draw. Sometimes I’ll throw the pen in my left hand and try to write sentences and just kind of activate much more artistic behaviors to keep that brain firing in new and unique ways.

Pete Mockaitis
Brian, this has been such a treat. I wish you much luck with the book, and your speaking, and your work, and all the fun you’re up to.

Brian Solis
Well, Pete, I appreciate it. I’m on a mission. Like you said at the beginning, this is my eighth book, but my first personal book. I’m hoping to just bring anyone who is willing along on the journey with me.

Pete Mockaitis
Cool. Thank you.