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919: How to Find Fulfillment, Drive Engagement, and Unlock Your Greatness with Sean Patton

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Sean Patton reveals his warrior mindset to help maximize your potential and performance.

You’ll Learn:

  1. How to get better at feeling grateful
  2. The root of every workplace failure–and how to overcome it
  3. The coaching approach that really works

About Sean

Sean Patton’s mission is to transform modern leadership into a driver of fulfillment, abundance, and freedom. He applied these principles while growing his own companies and now helps others unlock greatness through Stronger Leaders Stronger Profits, a leadership coaching and consulting company. Sean’s leadership foundation was forged as a US Army Airborne Ranger and Special Forces Green Beret Commander, where he earned the respect of his men and chain of command while operating in hostile and politically sensitive environments.

Resources Mentioned

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Sean Patton Interview Transcript

Pete Mockaitis
Sean, welcome to How to be Awesome at Your Job.

Sean Patton
Hey, Pete, I’m excited to be here, man.

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, I’m excited to be chatting. Boy, you have such a rich body of experiences that I might classify as hardcore. Is that fair to say, Sean?

Sean Patton
Yeah, we can put it in that. We’ll put it in that section of the library if you want.

Pete Mockaitis
Army Ranger, Special Force, Green Beret, a Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu World Champion. That’s awesome. First, let’s talk about jiu-jitsu. That’s how Nick connected us, and Nick is quite the jiu-jitsu fan. He raves about it. Tell us, what do you love about it? And how does one get to be a champion?

Sean Patton
Well, there’s so many things I love about it. It’s interesting, jiu-jitsu is addictive. I tell people it takes about 90 days. In 90 days, you’re either going to hate it and never come back or you’re going to be in for life. And I think that jiu-jitsu actually fills a role that we don’t get filled in modern society, that’s very natural to us. We’re tribal creatures.

We’re designed to be in a group of like-minded people, with a common set of values, and a common purpose, and elders that teach us things, then we teach the people below us things, and we all believe the same things, we’re all going towards the same sort of mission, and we all have the same mindset. Like, that’s the environment we’re supposed to be in, and that’s obviously very different than the modern world we live in. It’s very individualistic and there’s conflict everywhere.

And so, in jiu-jitsu, everything in life is a filter. Jiu-jitsu is a good filter of people who want to come in and are willing to put themselves through hard things and be uncomfortable because they want to better themselves. And so, now everyone can call us around that, and it really becomes, like, a family and part of your identity. And, ultimately, because it’s so hard, it makes the rest of life easier.

Pete Mockaitis
Yes. Well, I do want to talk about hardness. So, tell us, we mission hardcore, that theme, like, yeah, each of those experiences – Army Ranger, Special Force, Green Beret commander, Jiu-Jitsu – sure do involve some discomfort physically and on other domains. Tell us, how do you and your compatriots endure this discomfort and pain regularly?

Sean Patton
I think it comes down to mindset and, more specifically, purpose. Like, I was a Special Forces combat diver so my second command was an underwater infiltration team of Green Berets, and I had to be in cold water, like, all the time. It was brutal. And there’s nothing worse in life than having to be wet and cold, and I had to be wet and cold so much.

So, that being said, I’m a complete baby now. I scuba dive. If it’s below 70 degrees, I’m not going in the water. If it’s the Pacific, count me out. I’ll hang on the beach. I’m a baby because there’s no purpose behind it. And when people struggle to, I think, overcome challenges, overcome apathy, overcome any sort of wear or friction it is in their lives, oftentimes it’s because they haven’t created enough value and the purpose and the reason behind it.

You might say, if you take, like, the mother with her kids, like, “Well, she wouldn’t harm a fly. She’s the nicest thing in the world.” Well, what if someone was after your kids? Well, then she’d be this big mama bear, she’d be crazy. So, we all are capable of greatness, we’re all capable of growth, we’re all capable of being these amazing individuals, and it’s just up to us to decide how we want to express that and what matters to us. Like, what’s worth suffering for and what’s not?

Pete Mockaitis
Can you tell us a story of you going through an experience, maybe it’s a training, maybe it’s a mission, in which you did have a whole lot of suffering but also a whole lot of purpose, and it worked out for you to persist?

Sean Patton
So, when I was in Afghanistan, we’re in the Afghan-Pakistan border, and we had in a bunch of nurses who had flown in to this rural area because, well, there’s no female doctors in Afghanistan because they can’t go to med school, like there are barely even midwives, and so there’s no medical training, and men can’t touch women. So, what that means is women have zero healthcare. There’s no one to serve them.

And so, just coming in and doing sort of routine medical care and treatment can be a huge boost for our mission there for the community. So, we flew them in and did a whole female-women’s seminar, health seminar. And then, as they were flying out, we were in an area that had a group called Haqqani, which Haqqani is like the extreme, the guys who are too extreme for the Taliban they go to Haqqani, and they were in our area, and they didn’t like the fact that we were helping women get healthcare.

And so, they had a recoilless rifle, and they tried to shoot down, almost did shoot down this helicopter full of all the nurses. And as soon as that went off, obviously, we have to respond. So, we immediately hit everyone out, and before they could break down their positions and drove out there, they were up on the mountains, we’re at between 8,000 and 10,000 feet above sea level with all our gear on. We ran up to the side of the mountain, and then we get into a firefight around between six and 900 meters. It’s a pretty far engagement but we were under consistent fire.

It was a tough firefight but the weapon they had used to almost shoot down the helicopter, we know we had to destroy. Like, we had to destroy that weapon, that recoilless rifle, because that’s something that can kill one of our tanks, that can take down a helicopter. We couldn’t let them break this thing down and take it back to Pakistan.

And so, we got in this firefight. I remember one of the crazier stories is as we’re shooting and they’re shooting back, and we have these grenades that go in grenade launchers, and we needed to, I needed to get those to the people that could shoot them. So, I’m running up and down the line, grabbing grenades from certain people and giving them to people who can shoot them. And as I’m running, I keep getting in the face with these evergreen trees, like the branches keep smacking me, smacking me in the face.

And I remember thinking, like, “What a time to be a klutz! Like, what a time. Like, come on, Sean, get it together. I know this is crazy. Things went fast. Like, you keep running into trees.” And then when I jumped behind a rock, and bullets were going around, and I realized, as I was next to one of my guys, that that was actually machine guy fire cutting down branches around me, and the branches were falling on top of me as I ran from position to position.

But that being said, we still had to get these grenades to other people, and we had to stay there until we could get air support and drop a bomb, and we couldn’t let them go. So, we were in this thing, the firefight, for four or five hours, and we had to keep them engaged so that they couldn’t withdraw. And, eventually, we were able to call in air support and drop bombs and take care of that.

But that was a mentally and physically exhausting mission that lasted almost a full day, but you get through it because, almost to come back to this, the purpose was so great. That’s the thing about the military. Is the juice worth the squeeze? Well, when it comes to defending a helicopter full of nurses trying to do their job in area where people are trying to stop them, and people trying to kill your friends and your compatriots, then you’re willing to do about anything.

Pete Mockaitis
Absolutely. Well, that’s powerful. Thank you. And so then, let’s make it a little bit more mundane, I suppose.

Sean Patton
Less hardcore. Down the hardcore.

Pete Mockaitis
But in the world of jiu-jitsu, so there’s discomfort there. So, what’s your purpose there that keeps you persisting to the point of becoming a champion?

Sean Patton
A few things. One, I was one of the owners of a jiu-jitsu gym and one of the instructors at the time we started up. So, there’s a leadership aspect, a leadership by example aspect that went into play, especially when I was training up for world. And I had this drive, I had gone through a really hard time. My first business had failed. I had gone from Green Beret commander, to having my first business fail and going through a bankruptcy three years later, to finding new partners and standing up, and growing a company.

And when I was specifically training for those tournaments, I feel like I had to get back to being my sort of warrior self, like I needed to prove it to myself, I needed to also set the example that it wasn’t about going out and actually winning, though that was the goal, but it was about showing the other members of the team and creating a culture where we work hard and we put ourselves out there in difficult situations, we put ourselves into stressful situations because we want to be the best, because we want to prove something to ourselves, because we want to do it for our team.

And so, that was a big driver for me during that time frame because, again, it was a hard time from a personal standpoint of my life. And so, I really dedicated all the time and effort, and said, “You don’t control outcome in life.” We don’t control whether we win, whether we lose. All we control is our process and our preparation. And so, I just try to do all those things right and lead by example, and it worked out.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. Beautiful. Well, so, yeah, let’s hear about this Warrior’s Mindset, that’s the name of your book. What’s the mindset and what’s the big message in the book?

Sean Patton
Absolutely. So, I went with the Warrior’s Mindset, which is maybe a little, I don’t know, off-putting, it’s a little hardcore. You said hardcore. It’s a little intense for some people but how I define a warrior is a warrior is someone who fights for a noble cause greater than himself, and I don’t mean just physically fight. It’s, like, pursues, persists for a noble cause greater than himself.

And when you define it that way, then it becomes binary, so you either have a noble purpose, a noble cause, something that’s bigger than yourself that you’re working towards, that you’re fighting for, that you believe in, or you don’t. It’s one or the other. And if you don’t, which is if we’re not intentional with our lives and we don’t set purpose, if we don’t get to know ourselves, we’re just going through the motions, and you will consciously and subconsciously make decisions that are based on, “What is going to cause me the least discomfort in the moment?”

It’s going to be a very shortsighted decision-making. It’s going to be about comfort. It’s going to be about apathy. It’s going to be, like, “Well, that feels stressful.” But, again, if you don’t have that purpose behind it, you will turn it down. And I just think that, of those two, having that warrior’s mindset and having a noble purpose, aligns with our genetic purpose and aligns with who we are as human beings, and is the path to fulfillment.

And I think the other way is a path to misery, anxiety, depression, and everything else because you lack that noble purpose. So, that’s why I use the term A Warrior’s Mindset and what I ended up doing was researching and taking my own experiences, research, there’s over 300 citations in this book, everything from neuroscience, psychology, sociology, to history, to whittle down, and say, “How small can I make the framework to achieve that?”

Because it’s one thing to say, “Have a warrior’s mindset. Go fight for a noble cause. Do all these great things,” and then they ask the question, “Awesome. How?” And so, I really set out to create as simple a framework as I could but not miss anything critical to have a system, a framework that you could work through for your own mindset that really maximize your greatness. And so, I came up with a guide called Six Keys to Greatness.

Pete Mockaitis
And could you give us some examples of noble purposes that folks can really seem to connect and engage with in their work lives?

Sean Patton
Yeah, absolutely. So, I work with a lot of companies as a leadership coach and consultant, and I’m a firm believer in a leadership culture creating fulfillment. And so, I believe in purpose alignment. Managers are worried about financial incentive alignment, which is important. I’m not saying it’s not important but money is a satisfier, it’s not a driver. And if you can get yourself and getting people on your team aligned with, “What is the larger goal of this company?” your company should exist to provide some sort of effect to better people’s lives in the world.

And so, if you can really align that purpose in your work life, you can say, “Well, personally, here’s my beliefs. I think people should, in any industry, have better access to information, and we should support mothers doing home school. And I believe that we shouldn’t censor information to help that growth,” or something like that, as an example.

Well, if that aligns with your values and your purpose, now you can find a reason outside of the transactional paycheck to work every day, and how much better. I believe everyone should – this sounds crazy in some people’s corporate worlds – you should look forward to one-on-ones with your manager, like you should look forward to having performance evaluations and counseling sessions with the people that you work for and people that you work with.

I feel like we spend so much time at work in our work lives, more and more people are, and the pandemic just accelerated this mindset of, “We want purpose in the work we do. We want fulfillment in the work we do.” And I think if you do leadership the right way, I’m a true believer that you can create both fulfillment and profitability. Those things are not mutually exclusive.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. Cool. Could you, while we’re on the topic, give us a few more examples of folks you’ve seen they’ve got a purpose that’s aligning with their work, job, career, purpose, and then fireworks are happening?

Sean Patton
Yeah, absolutely. So, I’m trying to think which client example. So, I have one client I’m working with currently who had a successful company, it was a title company, he had 29 employees, doing very well for himself, but there was no passion behind it. He was just going through the motions and didn’t feel like he was living up to his potential, feel like he had sort of plateaued out for himself. And what he really wanted to do was create a vertically integrated real estate company.

And so, we sat down and we looked at, “Well, why do you want to do that?” “Well, I want to have freedom. I’ve got kids that are going to go to college. I want to be able to travel. My wife and I finally can go out and travel on our own, so I want to be able to have freedom of movement. I want to be challenged. I want to grow.”

And he also had this noble purpose of, a firm believer that for most people, especially people, normal middle-class folks that home ownership was a path to financial stability in life, and he really believed that. And so, he wanted to set up a company, everything from property management of rentals to construction, to real estate selling and title work with the idea of getting people who wanted to own a home but didn’t have the credit or do the background to do it, and then setting them up with rental situations that were stable so that they could stay there longer and then help them get to a point where they could buy their first home, and then they could hopefully buy it from him.

So, it was both profit and purpose together, and we came up with that plan slightly over a year ago, and I’m excited to see what he’s doing now. He’s got all four stood up, they’re all bringing in revenue, and he’s already got a team underneath him. And you can just see the drive and the excitement in the work he’s doing because he believes in it and he’s challenging himself.

Pete Mockaitis
That’s awesome. All right. Well, working through The Warrior’s Mindset, you’ve got six keys to greatness. Can you lay it on us what are each of the keys? And any pro tips for getting them unlocking stuff for us?

Sean Patton
Absolutely. So, the six keys are perspective and gratitude, is number one; internal locus of control is number two; north star purpose is three; self-discipline; perseverance; and leadership. So, I’ll give you the brief overview of each, and it has to start with the perspective of yourself. Do you have this warrior’s mindset or not? Are you trying to maximize your experience of life, maximize your impact on others or not? What are your values? So, what’s your perspective around that?

And then, hopefully from that, it becomes gratitude. I see gratitude as the eternal fuel source for everything else. Like, if I’m getting frustrated, if I’m feeling confused of my life, from having relationships, whatever that can be that’s going in my life that I’m struggling with mentally, I can always come back to expanding my aperture and show gratitude for, like, how lucky we are, how lucky are we to be in this country, how lucky are we to be at this time.

Like, there’s never been a time in the history of mankind of probably trillions, billions and billions of humans that have ever existed over the last few hundred thousand years, how many have had air conditioning. Like, how many have been in some sort of democracy where they had basic rights and freedoms? How many had a car that can drive them wherever they want to go and talk to people, like we’re talking now, across spans of time, and have information at their fingertips? Like, almost none of them. Basically, none of them.

The life we have, if you really think about it, should fill you with so much gratitude that it can get you over humps and drive you when you’re feeling. So, gratitude is the baseline for everything, I think, and that really takes work. And you can do gratitude journaling, you can do mindset work, you can do meditation. You can do a lot of things. But if someone’s listening to this podcast right now, I guarantee you, you’re in the 10% wealthiest people on the planet. Like, if you’re listening to this podcast, you are.

You are in the top 10%. And let’s embrace and celebrate that, not get apathetic to it, but use it as fuel to achieve our true greatness.

Pete Mockaitis
Yes, that is powerful – gratitude, eternal fuel. I’m intrigued. It is true, objectively speaking, we’re super blessed. When you zoom out, I like that notion, the wide aperture. We zoom out in terms of time and place, it is just a fact that we are exceptionally blessed and lucky, and yet it often doesn’t feel that way. And so, I like what you said, we should feel grateful, and it takes work. Can you expand on that? It seems like we humans have a knack for having our expectations rise so fast.

One of my favorite stories here is I remember, once I was coordinating a conference. This was back in college. I was coordinating a conference, and I thought, “You know what, I’m really going to delight.” I had a team of maybe 58, I still remember this. It was on my resume for a long time. I had a team of 58 people on my staff volunteering, my fellow students. And so, I thought, “You know what, I’m going to treat them. I’m going to,” to their surprise, this hadn’t been done in years past, I thought, “Right. We’re doing great, the budget is cool, so I’m going to get everyone a nice little spread of bagels and cream cheeses from Panera one morning.”

And so, I did, and they were thrilled, like, “Oh, this is so cool. Thanks. Awesome. I was hungry, I didn’t know what I was going to do,” and I thought, “Oh, yes.” And so, it felt good to be liked and appreciated, and that it was a hit, a surprise accomplished. And so then, it was a very hectic day, we were taking care of a lot of things.

I was tired, and I was thinking, “Oh, wow, we’ve got a bunch of bagels leftover. Okay, that’s fine. I guess we’ll be all set for tomorrow. Great. I don’t have to do anything because I want to go to bed now. it’s been a crazy long day.” And so, the next day, they said, “So, Pete, are there bagels this morning?” And I said, “Oh, yeah, actually we’ve got a ton leftover. They’re just right over there.” They said, “But they’re not fresh.” And I just loved it.

I was like, “In all the years past, we’ve done this event, there were not bagels. Yesterday was the coolest thing ever. Today we still have those bagels, and they’re almost as good. They’re not, like, two-week old bagels. Like, one day.” I’m no connoisseur, Sean.

Sean Patton
You’re no bagel connoisseur?

Pete Mockaitis
I’m not too picky with my food but I was like, “Okay, I know one-day old bagels aren’t as great as super fresh bagels, but that’s still not bad.” And so, it was just like one day is all it took from, “This is so grand” to “Aargh, they’re not fresh, and I’m disappointed.” And I think that that is representative of me and many of us in terms of something cool happens, we feel so blessed, so grateful, “Oh, my gosh, this is awesome. I got a big promotion, big jump in income. Cool, cool, cool.”

And it’s like, “Oh, now, what do you know? It’s so hard to make ends meet. How did that happen?” It’s sort of like our lifestyle, or our wants, or perceived needs, expectations grow such that we don’t feel the gratitude associated with, “Oh, wow, what I have is oh-so-abundant.” So, Sean, I want to throw that to you. You said we should feel grateful, and it takes some work. What’s going on with this human nature? And what can we do about it?

Sean Patton
Well, Buddhism says that being human is to suffer, and the real suffering comes from, I think you said it, expectation. And so, when there’s an incongruence or a difference between what our life is and what we may want, that wanting is what’s covering, is what’s causing the suffering. It’s not external. It’s inside our own heads.

Pete Mockaitis
Dukkha.

Sean Patton
Right, dukkha. Exactly, yeah. And we don’t have to go all spiritual on this, but I think that’s part of human nature as you get accustomed to that. I have this story, another story, it’s when I just got back from Iraq, I’ve been gone for 14 months in southwest Baghdad. And I get back, I was young, I was 25, and I was excited I got to go to Starbucks. I was super stoked, like, “Oh, my gosh. I go to Starbucks.”

I get in line, and I’m waiting there, and there’s just two girls in front of me, and they’re having this conversation. Somebody said something about…Oh, no, what it was it was the fall, it was October and they ran out of pumpkin spice.

Pete Mockaitis
“I need my PSL, Sean. I totes need it.”

Sean Patton
They needed it, and they lost their minds. And one was like, “This is the worst day ever.” And I just had to cover my head and walk out after I’m like, again, objectively, you should feel grateful but they had this expectation and this quality of life. And to kind of go back to our earlier conversation about jiu-jitsu, we’re about just doing hard things, like, it’s easy. To be comfortable in America, like, let’s be honest, is it the perfect place? We have a lot of things we need to change, absolutely.

But to be comfortable? Like, it’s not that hard. You don’t have to do much. And because of all that comfort and the reward, and whether it’s social media, we feed that machine of getting gratification, of getting pleasure without putting in work, and then that becomes an expectation. And that’s a dopamine cycle that is at the root of all addiction. And we get addicted to the easy dopamine and that easy win.

And so, yeah, we have to do that work. And that’s why you have to be intentional about that gratitude. Are you going to be perfect? No. I do it all the time. It’s not, like, I’m walking around floating on a cloud with fairies over my head, and just like rainbows everywhere. Like, that’s not the case. I go through hard times, and everyone does, but it’s doing work so that when you have enough self-awareness to see yourself going down that path, and you can redirect and pull yourself out with intentionality.

And I think that’s really what it comes down to, is living intentionally. Because if you let yourself, again, that’s really the definition of a warrior’s mindset, living with intention toward this bigger goal, as opposed to being reactive to your environment, and just like, “Well, I feel awful, therefore, everything is awful.” Like, does it or do you just feel awful because you wanted your PSL, and now you can’t, and, really, you could get something else and be fine? Like, that’s a matter of perspective but that takes intentionality.

Pete Mockaitis
And so, these practices, can you share with us, let’s say, in the moment? Because I’ve done some gratitude journals, and sometimes when I write down the thing that I’m grateful for, it’s like, “Yeah, that really was so amazing, and I feel in my heart a grand sense of gratitude.” And other times, it’s like, “Yup, that was good, and that was good, and that was good,” but I don’t feel much of anything, and I’m just objectively, “Yes, that was a good thing. I am pleased that that occurred,” but my heartfelt gratitude is not ignited. What do I do with that?

Sean Patton
Yeah, I know, you’re totally right. And I think it really also comes down to, like, present-ness and sort of being in the now of it, which is part of internal locus of control, which is like an attribution of control, “Is it external or is it internal?” And so, that comes into play here, like saying, “Well, ultimately, how you feel is up to you. It’s inside you. You own this.”

And so, when you are working through that gratitude, if you can be present and not thinking about, “Well, the things I don’t have or where I want to be, or what’s going to happen in 10 minutes,” but, like, “But are you okay right now?” Breath. Slow down. And it sounds super cliché, but you don’t have to do a formal journal. Like, count your blessings. Like, how good is it right now for you compared to how bad it is other places? And I would just say do more research about what’s going on in the world.

If you want to feel lucky, like go read the news for a day, and you’ll be like, “Oh, my God, my life isn’t anything like these.” It’s almost like I hear people talk about they watch trashy reality or something because it makes them feel better about their own lives because it’s so crazy and dramatic. And so, whatever it takes, I don’t know, I guess if it’s “Real Housewives” or if it’s breath work or gratitude journaling, whatever it takes for you to get to that place.

And, again, you’re going to get off-kilter, you’re going to feel bad, and it’s okay to feel bad in the moment, that’s fine. We’re not worried about the acute feelings of, like, sadness and happiness in the moment. We’re worried about the underlying mental state that you’re carrying around.

Pete Mockaitis
So, your advice then is if I’m doing a gratitude journal, but, one, if it never does it for me, just maybe try something else. But if I am doing it, and it sometimes works for me, I’m seeking to double down on experiencing the feeling of gratitude. Is that accurate?

Sean Patton
Yes, double down on the experiencing gratitude. I’m a meditator. I actually don’t journal. There’s always different techniques, and some things work for some people, some things work for others. For me, meditation has been huge for me in my own mindset shifts and even the transition in the military, and everything.

And a simple gratitude meditation of if you’re really starting to go off the deep end, like sitting down, following your breath, and then just picture in your head things that – your family, or your friends, or the things you have, or the house you have, or the job you have, or the security you have – and reflecting on that, and experiencing that gratitude in the moment, because as soon as we ruminate on the future, that creates anxiety. Why? Because you can’t control the future.

And if we reflect on the past too much, if we ruminate on the past, it creates depression and regret because you can’t change the past. But, luckily for us, neither one of those things are real. The only thing that’s real is the moment. And so, working on your perspective and gratitude, internal locus of control, and doing things that bring you in this moment, my guess is you’re doing pretty good compared to others. That doesn’t mean you have to feel great awful things happen to people.

You should feel emotion. But, again, we’re not worried about, “This thing is happening so I feel bad.” That’s okay. But it’s about living unconsciously and not even being aware that you’re doing it.

Pete Mockaitis
That’s good. Thank you. Well, tell us then, your organization Stronger Leaders, Stronger Profits, you do leadership coaching and consulting. We talked, we had a quick overview of the keys, and then a deeper dive into gratitude. Can you share with us, when we look at a whole team or organization level, how do you see things shake out in terms of being the primary drivers of, say, poor versus amazing engagement?

Sean Patton
That’s a great question. The two things, the two Cs, if you will, if you had to say, “What’s the quickest win?” or, “What’s the one thing?” If I had to say, “You’ve got a snapshot, two minutes to look over this company, and figure out how are things going,” I would look at two things – communication and counselling.

How are your communication systems? Are they clear? Is it accurately spreading information down? Is there a system to get feedback to come up? When someone gives feedback, do they get a response? Like, how is your communication? And I think looking at that system first, that fixes so much. Most of your listeners, I’m sure, can, when I think about how to be awesome at your job, and when their job is awesome and when it’s not awesome.

When your job is not awesome, or something goes wrong, communication, or a lack thereof, or a misaligned expectation because of communication, communication is either the primary cause or a strong contributor to almost every business failure. There’s very rarely where I say, “Hey, Pete, here’s a task. I need you to finish this project by the end of the week,” and you get to Thursday, and you’re like, “Eh, screw Sean. Like, whatever. Screw that, I don’t really care,” and you just fail on purpose. I’m not saying it doesn’t happen, but those are pretty easy to identify if that’s happened.

So, if that’s not the case, if you were going to assume good intent, that you’re trying to do the right thing, well, then we must’ve had misaligned expectations. What you thought was done and good is not what I thought was done and good. And so, I do have one sort of framework around effective communication when you want to ask someone to do something, or give someone a task, or whatever, without missing anything. And I call it the Five Bravo.

So, it’s task, what do you want done; purpose, why do you want it done, how does it affect other people; intent, and that’s the how, like if there’s a certain way I want you to do it, is there a resource I’m going to give you, like are you going to have a team to do this, what’s your intent behind it; and then timeline, when do you need this done by, what are your for dates and end state. So, when you’re done, you come back, and you say, “Hey, Sean, I did that report for you. Here it is,” what’s that look like to me, what’s my expectation?

So, if you just go through that task, purpose, intent, timeline, end state, if you just cover all five of those when ask someone to do something or put something in an email, and then the B for bravo is back brief. So, especially if I gave that to you, “What questions do you have?” and I say, “All right. So, Pete, I probably missed something, like that’s a lot of information. What do you have? What did you hear from me?” And then you repeat it back to me.

Seventy percent of the time, you’re going to be missing something, and that may be because you missed it or maybe because I thought I said it because it was in my head but I didn’t actually say it, like all those things happen but it can be cleared up with a simple framework of the Five Bravo. And I’ve had clients take their project request forms between divisions and actually change their forms to be that layout.

Because if you communicate effectively that way, then when someone doesn’t meet expectation, well, the decision is binary. It’s binary. Then you have, which is only one of two things, it’s either they’re not capable of doing this yet, so they need more training, or they have had the training and they’re uncapable, unwilling to perform what you need them to perform, in which case, they need to do a different role and leave the organization. You can start making that determination.

But what happens most often in organizations is there was a fault on poor communication from the person giving or asking that to be done, there was misaligned expectations of what their expectation coming back was, and there’s a blame on the person for not executing the way, and not having the end state that they desired, but it was due to a poor communication.

So, this happens companies, too. If something goes wrong, the first thing I do before is think, “Did I give them the Five Bravo? Did I give them all five?” And if I didn’t, that’s on me. I can’t hold them accountable for that. It’s my responsibility to get better at communicating. But if I did, now I can take action. And so, communication is so important. And the second thing is counselling, which we can talk about in a second if you want.

Pete Mockaitis
And so then, I think we know it when a communication failure went down in the moment. How do you assess the overall health of communication in a team or an organization?

Sean Patton
So, there are several ways. One, doing a good assessment and coming in and hearing from people how they feel about the communication. Are they heard? Do they have the means to give feedback? Do they understand the why behind what they’re doing? Do they understand where the company is headed and what they do? Is the mission and values and vision communicated all the way to the bottom? Do people know?

You can simply ask, “What’s your role here? What do you do?” They should be able to walk that all the way up to how the company executes its strategic initiatives. And if they can’t, you know there’s a lack of communication. But your question actually brings me to a huge part, which they’re intertwined, is counseling, which is the second thing.

And I see almost no one does this as well as they should, and it’s the number one thing that would improve the culture of any organization and team. And it also facilitates this type of communication, where instead of doing performance evaluations, that’s very transactional, again, that’s management. Like, “You had these tasks. Did you do them or not? How did you do them? Did you do them okay? Where are you at in this?”

That’s fine. I’m not saying not to do that. But if that’s all you do, you’re really setting yourself up for failure, especially in the modern workplace, especially if they’re remote and hybrid workers. If you take a developmental counseling approach, where we meet monthly, quarterly, and we’re talking about we’re not just managing the position but we’re leading the person.

We’re talking to the person, “Personally, what are your goals this quarter? Did you accomplish them? Did I do everything I said I would do to support you? What’s your goals in the future? How can I help you get there? What are your professional goals? What are your team goals? And what are those objectives? And how can I support you do that? And what are you struggling with? And here’s where I see you going? Here’s your career progression.”

Like, that’s a coaching mentality and that leader mentality of creating new human potential by changing the way people think about themselves, the organization and the world, versus management, which is efficiency of a system. And so, when you shift to a leadership culture and you shift to communication and development of human beings, being a core competency of your business, that’ll turn around almost any company.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. And so, in most organizations, are these conversations just not happening very often? Or, what’s the piece that’s lacking?

Sean Patton
Yeah, there’s no formal construct to have this type of leader conversations, and so you have some people that are having them, and others that are checking the box. I guess we don’t want to piss off too many people the way they do things, but I see a lot of companies where we’ll go in, and, say, HR sends you a performance eval for your annual performance eval, you fill it out of how you think you did, that gets sent to somewhere or something, and then somebody talks to you about it, and maybe they talk about how that affects your bonus or where you’re looking to go next, and that’s about the end of it, “Do better here. Don’t do this.”

Like, that is such a different mentality than saying, “Hey, Pete, here’s the role, the function you play here. Why are you here? Like, why are you doing this job? Are you money-motivated? Cool, let’s talk about that.” Sometimes you talk to, like, a seller, this actually happened at my wife’s company. She was having some issues with one of her sellers. She’s a senior sales manager. And when she talked to him, yes, he’s money-motivated but this wasn’t his passion. His goal was to open up his own business. And in order to do that, he had figured out that he would need $200,000. Okay.

So, instead of her assuming that he wants to hit goal to make money, to move up in the sales organization, instead of that being the expectation, he was very clear, like, “No, my goal is to actually leave the organization and do my own thing. I see 200K.” “Cool. Well, let’s align your purpose with company purpose. How fast can we get you to 200K? How do I need to support you?” And now that person is motivated, even though they’re doing the same job they were doing before. But before, they hadn’t framed it as, “Let’s get you out of this company as soon as possible and onto the next thing.”

And so, having a formal system to have leadership conversations at a regular interval that is written out, that people are accountable for, is huge. When I was counseled in the military, we do counseling like this in the military, and it’s a big part of the leadership equation, and I can’t tell you, I had hundreds of counseling sessions. I can tell you a handful of specific moments or things that I still remember that’s still impactful.

But I can definitely tell the commanders that took the time out to actually do it and the ones who skipped over it and penciled with it, like cared enough to develop me and have that conversation about how they could support me, and where I wanted to go, and give me honest feedback on that as a human being, not just in, “Here’s your performance metrics and KPIs,” and that human component is really where we get from management to leadership.

And with the way the world is heading with our workforce, people don’t want to just be managed. And it used to be if I had a bad manager at my job, it’s like, “Well, yeah, Bob kind of sucks but I got another job offer, but I got to move the house, and the kids are in soccer, and the change cost is so high.” But with remote hybrid workers now, the only thing that changes if I changed jobs is, “What software do I log in tomorrow?” So, that’s a different set of conditions, work conditions that companies are not adapting to. They’re not realizing that 75% of the reason people leave jobs is because of bad bosses, not bad jobs.

And so, if you get this right, it increases retention, internal hires, employee engagement, all those things. And we’re right back to your company can create fulfillment and profitability together.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. That’s good. So, counseling frequently. Is there a magic frequency – weekly, monthly? What’s the vibe?

Sean Patton
Depending on the position, whether you need to do weekly one-on-ones or not, some positions, I think, you do, some you don’t. Lower-level people generally need more weekly one-on-ones and check-ins and handholding right, like more entry-level folks as oppose to more senior folks don’t need that as much. But I think the magic sauce, what we espouse and we help our clients with, is that we do a written form every quarter that lays out the next three months, and then you adapt off that same form and you meet monthly. So, monthly counseling but you’re filling out a full new form on goals and objectives once every quarter.

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

Sean Patton
My favorite quote is actually by George Bernard Shaw, it’s the unreasonable man quote, and it’s that “The reasonable man sees the world the way it is and adapts himself to it, and the unreasonable man persists in trying to adapt the world to him, and, therefore, all progress depends on the unreasonable man.”

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

Sean Patton
The quintessential one for me, it’s funny, because of all the different research and stuff I looked at is still the Harvard happiness study. An 80-year study that started in the 1930s that tried to determine what are the variables that affect joy and fulfillment in life, and they’re on the second generations. So, they did it with their first subject all the way through their deathbed, then the second generation. And they, recently, just last year, revised their latest findings.

And it’s just clear that it’s not socioeconomic status, it’s not race, sex, any things that really are universally responsible for fulfillment and joy in life, and it’s absolutely the quality of your close relationships. And I think that is a really powerful thing because if you talk about motivators for different people, to get over those hard challenges like we talked about at the beginning of this episode, my nightmare is being in older age and having regret about something in my life, about something I didn’t do, and not having the time or energy to do anything about it.

And there’s actually studies that have been done that show that 70-75% of all seniors live with the regret because they lived the way someone else thought they should, or because of societal norms, or because they thought it was just the right thing to do, and they didn’t go live their life the way they wanted to, and they didn’t maintain the quality close relationships. So, that’s my worst nightmare. That’s what drives me at the end of the day, is I think that when I’m one day laying in my bed, getting ready to close my eyes for the last time, I can look back at my life, and be like, “I freaking did it, and it was awesome.”

Pete Mockaitis
Beautiful. And a favorite book?

Sean Patton
My favorite book right now is an older book but it’s The 15 Commitments of Conscious Leadership and I’m really getting more and more into conscious leadership right now, and some of the practices around that, and how I can implement that in my systems. Yeah, so that’s one that I’m a huge proponent of. But before that, I read Life of Joy it’s with the Dalai Lama and Desmond Tutu who talked about how you create joy in life. I would say those two books in the last year have been two that really hit me hard.

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

Sean Patton
Another great question. I know this is the hot topic of the day, but I use a paid service called Jasper for my AI. And it sped up our workflows in so many ways because I’ve been able to come up with my original concept or framework. So, you can put your own original thought in but you can just put in bullet format and it can write you an 80% solution, and it can create captions. So, I’m fully in on using AI, generative AI, in our day-to-day to make our jobs more productive and easier.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. And a favorite habit?

Sean Patton
My favorite habit is, I’m going to sound so boring though, I’m going to sound boring to say this, but that’s fine, but I am all about my nighttime routine and the same times, going to bed at the same times and waking up at the same times. And so, one thing my wife and I do is, like, she’s even more into the sleep stuff than I am. She’s like Spy Kids, she’s got like a Whoop on one arm and an Apple Watch on the other, she’s like all the bio data she can get.

But we have half our lights in our house set so that at 8:00 p.m. we only have red lights from down all the way to our bedrooms to our bathroom. So, we take away all that light exposure, and that habit, that itself, whether it’s the blue light or whether it’s just a Pavlovian response to the fact of the red light, but as soon as the red lights come on, I get sleepy and I have a great rest. So, I’m really big on my night routine and going to bed at the same time and waking up at the same time.

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

Sean Patton
I think one thing I often say is that there’s an obligation of greatness. If I truly believe that, again, we are living at such an amazing time, we’re in this country, we have so much potential to do so much good, to be great. Almost everyone that’s listening, like you have the potential to be great in however you define that in your life, you have greatness inside you, and your potential for that, and the opportunity for it.

But I’m a firm believer that, with the potential for greatness, comes an inherent obligation to achieve it. So, now that’s a chip on your shoulder because, otherwise, that’s the unmet potential is not being grateful for the opportunities you’ve been given.

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

Sean Patton
So, I’m SeanPattonSpeaks on Instagram. I’m on LinkedIn. Those are my primary social tools. And then our website is StrongerLeadersStrongerProfits.com.

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

Sean Patton
I think it’s to evaluate inside of their company whether they are managing the position or whether they’re leading the person, and lean into leading the person and leading the person with intentionality. And I think you’ll see some great results not just in the company’s success but in quality of life.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. Sean, this has been a treat. I wish you much fun and warrior mindset goodness.

Sean Patton
Thanks, Pete. This has been awesome. I appreciate it, man. You do great work here.

917: Training Your Mind For Better Focus, Energy, and Willpower with Oren Jay Sofer

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Oren Jay Sofer shares how to engage contemplative practices to improve your focus, energy, and quality of life.

You’ll Learn:

  1. The five-item list that will help you focus better
  2. How to be unstoppable in the face of procrastination
  3. The three-second trick for boosting energy

About Oren

Oren Jay Sofer teaches meditation and communication internationally. He holds a degree in comparative religion from Columbia University and is a Certified Trainer of Nonviolent Communication and a Somatic Experiencing Practitioner for the healing of trauma. Oren is also the author of several books, including the best-seller Say What You Mean: A Mindful Approach to Nonviolent Communication and his latest book, Your Heart Was Made for This: Contemplative Practices toMeet a World In Crisis with Courage, Integrity, and Love. His teaching has reached people around the world through his online communication courses and guided meditations. A husband and a father, Oren lives in the San Francisco Bay Area, where he enjoys cooking, spending time in nature, and home woodworking projects.

Resources Mentioned

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Oren Jay Sofer Interview Transcript

Pete Mockaitis
Oren, welcome back to How to be Awesome at Your Job.

Oren Jay Sofer
Thanks, Pete. It’s great to be here.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, I believe something has changed since the last time we spoke.

Oren Jay Sofer
It certainly has.

Pete Mockaitis
And you’re a proud father now. Tell us the tale.

Oren Jay Sofer
Yeah. Well, my wife and I are both in our 40s, and she came to me a couple of years ago, dropped the bomb, and said, “Hey, I think I want to have a kid.” And I said, “That’s different.”

Pete Mockaitis
Different?

Oren Jay Sofer
Well, different than where we were when we got together 10 years ago. Yeah, so I’m a meditator so I told her, “I love you, and that’s important to me, and this is not a small decision, so give me some time to think about this.” And we talked it over, of course, but I sat quietly with myself and I listened deeply, and I really asked myself, “Is this something that I’m willing to do?” And this image came to me, Pete, of a door opening. And I thought, “Yeah, I want to walk through that door. I want to see what this aspect of life is like. I’m here to learn. And what better learning than bringing new life into our world.”

And, of course, I had a lot of reservations and fears that I talked through close friends with who are parents, which was very, very helpful. One of my biggest fears was the state of our world and what does it mean to bring a new life in right now with so much changing so quickly and unraveling. And one of my good friends, who’s a social justice activist, an organizer, and has been for many years, who cares deeply and has thought very deeply about these issues, and as a parent, said to me, he said, “You know, Oren, I don’t think the world is going to be worse off for you having a child.”

And that really shifted something in me. It made me realize, “This could be a contribution rather than a drain on our society.” So, yeah, I’m now the proud parent of a 13-month-old baby, and we got through the first six months, which were really hard, and just delighting in him and learning so much from him every day, and really feeling like all of the meditation practice I’ve done has positioned me really well to be a dad and to meet this new being, and help him learn about our world.

Pete Mockaitis
That is beautiful. Yes, I was just about to ask about those practices being helpful as I have read a book entitled, I’ll paraphrase a smidge, How to Not Lose Your Poo-Poo with Your Kids because that’s a common situation, Oren.

Oren Jay Sofer
Indeed.

Pete Mockaitis
And have you found that your years of practice have resulted in less of a tendency to be reactive and yell or lose it or otherwise react in a way that you’d rather not?

Oren Jay Sofer
Yes and. So, absolutely, there’s no question in my mind that the many years of meditation I’ve done, and really training myself to be aware of how I’m feeling and what’s happening in the moment has allowed me to make different choices, to notice when I’m getting reactive or frustrated, and ask for help or shift gears. And being a parent has pushed my edges unlike anything else.

Alongside all of the joy, it’s been incredibly humbling to see my patience run out at 3:00 in the morning with a screaming baby who doesn’t want to change his diaper, or feeling sleep-deprived and just not having anything left. So, I feel also this immense appreciation and profound respect for my own parents and for parents everywhere. It’s just been staggering to see how much time and energy and love it takes to keep a little human being alive.

Pete Mockaitis
Amen. Well, good to know that even the most contemplative among us can have that occur.

Oren Jay Sofer
Well, I’ll add one thing that’s been really huge, Pete, which is that I don’t beat myself up for it. When I slip up, when I lose my patience, when I get frustrated, all of the years of training and practicing kindness, and being with the harsh inner voice in my head, has shifted how I relate to myself and my difficulty so that when I act in a way that’s not aligned with my values or my intentions, instead of beating myself up, there’s a sense of tenderness and acceptance for my limitations, which is such a different place from which to learn and grow.

Pete Mockaitis
Certainly, as opposed to the scolding, like, “Okay, that was not what I was going for. All right. Let’s see what needs to change here and try to do better.” Okay. Well, you’ve got another opus coming out here, Your Heart Was Made for This: Contemplative Practices for Meeting a World in Crisis with Courage, Integrity, and Love. That sounds big. Tell us what’s the big idea here?

Oren Jay Sofer
It is big. The big idea is that, so in the last 10, 15 years, meditation and mindfulness have kind of taken certain sectors in the public conversation by storm, and for some people that’s great, and for other people meditation is not something that’s interesting, it doesn’t work for them, and I respect that. So, the big idea here is that meditation is just one form of what is known more broadly as contemplative practice, which is essentially anything that cultivates reflection, awareness, and connects us with our sense of purpose and meaning in life.

So, the analogy I like to use is just like, say, lifting weights or strength training is one form of exercise, meditation is one form of contemplative practice. So, if you came to me and said, “Well, I don’t like to lift weights so I’m not going to exercise.” We would say, “That’s crazy. Why don’t you take a walk? Why don’t you bike? Why don’t you swim?”

So, in the same way, there’s this whole array of ways to strengthen our inner life and build more inner resources that’s much more varied than meditation. And my book is really about, “How do we broaden our scope and use the time that we have in our families, at work, on the planet, to develop this amazing set of powerful qualities we possess?” Like, energy, concentration, joy, patience, resolve, even things like play and rest. All of these are like different notes in our repertoire, and we can learn how to play them when we have the right tools.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. More energy, more concentration, more resolve, that sounds lovely, like a limitless pill going on. So, I want to really dig into the menu of this contemplative practices, but, first, I’ve got to hit it. Oren, can you share with us the evidence, the research, the basis by which we can claim that, indeed, pursuing some of these to-be-mentioned contemplative practices will boost energy and concentration and resolve, and other positive inner resources?

Oren Jay Sofer
I’ll give you a few datapoints. So, first, the whole field of positive psychology is based upon what’s known as Hebbian neuroplasticity, which was discovered by a man named Donald Hebb in the 1970s which essentially proved that our brains are not fixed, that both the structure and the function of our neurology can shift through repeated practice.

And what’s cool about that to me as a meditator is that modern neuroscience has borne out what contemplatives and mystics have known for millennia, which is that our inner world isn’t fixed, that it’s malleable, and what we do, how we act, and think, and speak every day affects it.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. So, neuroplasticity…?

Oren Jay Sofer
Essentially, the phrase that a lot of people have heard is neurons that fire together, wire together. The more you do something, the better you get it, and that includes being frustrated, irritable, petty, and it includes being patient, kind, and generous. So, this is the underlying kind of property or principle why all this stuff works.

Okay. Then, if we look at specific qualities, we can see both that there’s a neurological basis for them, and that we can enhance and cultivate them. So, take a quality like generosity. A lot of different opinions out there about human nature, and several studies have shown that toddlers, two years old, can and do exhibit generosity.

So, one study that kind of blew me away, toddlers who have, like, a favorite teddy bear and who are really to it, like if you take it away or if it’s missing, they’re going to be inconsolable. When they’re put in a situation, and there’s a stranger who appears to need some comfort and consolation, that toddler will offer their favorite teddy to that stranger. So, there’s generosity, there’s empathy.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, as you say that, I’m just tearing up because, I guess, I got three young kids myself but that is a very beautiful point of evidence. And then I’m also thinking about Anne Frank, in spite of everything, I still believed people have a good heart, so the teddy bear sharing, when it’s near and dear to them, at such a young age, that strikes home.

Oren Jay Sofer
Yeah. And as parents, I’m sure you’ve seen it. I was sitting on the couch the other day with my young son who just turned one, this was actually before he was one, and he was nibbling on a little piece of apple, really enjoying it. And what does he do? He takes a few nibbles and then he offers it to me and puts it in my mouth, and then he takes it back and nibbles a little more, and then he offers it to me.

So, one of the other things that we’ve seen in research on pro-social qualities, like empathy, like generosity, like compassion, like gratitude, is that while there is an innate neurological basis for these qualities, they also need to be strengthened and cultivated. So, we enter the world primed to have these incredibly powerful nourishing qualities for ourselves personally and for our society, but they need to be encouraged by the adults around us.

So, something like compassion can either grow and flourish based on the kind of mirroring and experiences we have as we grow, or can atrophy. One of the examples I like to use, just to come back to studies and research, and this is more of an analogy, is we know that the human organism is born with the capacity to learn any language on the planet. Our neurology is primed to learn any sound and grammar. We can learn any language.

And in the same way, I like to suggest that our hearts are primed to experience and know all of these beautiful capacities, like kindness, patience, courage, curiosity. And the question is, “Do we get the chance to learn them and develop them?” And at any point in life, we can tap into these and strengthen them. It’s kind of like having a high-fidelity stereo, and being able to adjust the treble and the mid and the bass so that we can really enjoy the music as fully as possible.

In the same way, do we have access to all of the potentials in our hearts? And are we able to kind of play all those notes in our lives, and experience courage, and ease, and wonder, and contentment, even forgiveness or wisdom? These are all things that we can grow and strengthen through choosing where we place our attention, which is really where the journey begins, and looking at how we use our attention, and what is competing for our attention in our world today.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. Well, these are big, beautiful, powerful ideas. And so, first, I’m going to go mercenary on you, Oren, it’s like, “Oh, that all sounds nice for mankind and the world, but how does it make me awesome at my job, Oren?”

Oren Jay Sofer
Absolutely, yeah. Well, as you point out quite appropriately, we spend an outsized amount of our time at work, and so how we work is really important. Our experience of our job, our coworkers, our self, isn’t fixed. It’s influenced not only by the external factors, many of which as we know are outside of our control. It’s influenced by what we bring to it, how we pay attention, and how we do our work every day.

So, using these skills, we can develop a different relationship with our work. We can learn to be more effective, to have more of a sustainable energy than this burst of energy and burning out, to have more focus and concentration rather than being scattered all the time. We can learn to really enjoy the aspects of our job that we like and get the most nourishment from them, which then creates a positive feedback loop where we have more energy and meaning because we’re focusing on that.

And, of course, this isn’t to kind of ignore or avoid the difficult things or the things that don’t work, but it’s to ensure that we’re not missing the good aspects of our work and our job and the people around us. And the more we’re able to develop the skills of attention, the more available we are for joy and goodness in our lives and our work, the more effective we can be because we’re not wasting precious time and energy reacting, we’re not stuck in stories from the past, we’re not pushing against things that are beyond our influence to change.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. Understood. And, again, having that initial energy, concentration, and resolve can just be huge in terms of when, in some ways, that makes all the difference in terms of every minute or hour you’re spending on doing something, the work product will be high or low quality in large part based on how much quality energy, concentration, resolve you can give to it versus how likely you are saying, “Ah, maybe I’ll just handle some easy emails instead because I don’t have the energy, concentration, resolve to power through this tricky, ambiguous, frustrating, and high-value piece of work.”

Oren Jay Sofer
Right. And the beautiful thing about it is that when we’re able to marshal our resources in that way and really dig into a project, guess what, we get to celebrate and rest afterwards. We get to feel that sense of ease and satisfaction in knowing, “I knocked out the most important thing on my list today, and now I can breathe more easily.”

Pete Mockaitis
Certainly.

Oren Jay Sofer
Brings rewards in the moment and in the long term.

Pete Mockaitis
And I suppose there’s little doubt that if you do something, you get better at that something, if it’s like playing golf, or juggling, or chess, or pumping iron, lifting weights, so we can see, or running, “Hey, I see improvements however I’m measuring that,” in terms of the chess rating, the bench press, 1 rep max, the balls not dropped, or the continuous minutes of juggling, whatever. There’s a means by which we do a thing and then we can see and measure progress.

Could you give us an example of a measure, whether it’s a measure of energy or concentration or resolve, and the protocol, or the program, the workout regiment, of contemplative practice? And what sorts of lift is seen after having engaged in that?

Oren Jay Sofer
Yeah. So, my focus is through experience. I’m an empirical person so my work is based on my own training and the students/participants that I work with in my retreats and workshops. All this stuff is supported by the neuroscience, but just to be clear and upfront, that’s not my focus or area of expertise. So, let’s talk about concentration, and I’ll talk about it from a personal experience perspective, both in myself and in working with hundreds, if not thousands, of people practicing these skills.

So, the first thing, if we want to be able to concentrate better, the first thing to do is to understand what’s meant by concentration and how it arises. So, oftentimes, we think of concentration as a kind of force your mind to stay with something. And that can work for a little bit of time as driven by willpower but eventually we burn out because it’s not sustainable, and it’s a certain kind of brittle concentration. If something interrupts us, we lose it very quickly.

So, the kind of concentration I’m talking about, I might call stability or a collected mind. It’s really akin to what’s known in the research as a flow state. We’re present, we’re connected, we’re flexible, and we have access to all of our resources. We’re not straining, we’re not tight, we’re not burning up energy unnecessarily. We’re in a relationship with what’s happening. This runs counter to so much in our world and our society today, which is pushing us to be distracted, to multitask and fragmenting our attention.

So, what we’re doing with concentration is we’re regathering our energy, our attention, and learning to channel it in the direction of our choosing. So, how do we do that? How does this concentrated, gathered flow state arise? Well, just think about the last time you were really focused in a relaxed way, reading a book, playing a sport, working on a project. How did that come about? Well, you were probably really interested. There was a natural curiosity. You were probably somewhat relaxed, you’re able to drop into the moment, and you were clear about what you were doing and why. You have certain clarity of intent.

So, these are the factors that we want to get familiar with and learn to cultivate in our life and in our work, “Am I interested? Do I know why I’m doing this? Am I connected to that? Can I relax a little bit?” And that begins just by relaxing the body, just by attending, “Is my jaw tight? Am I clenching my fists? Can I relax my belly a little bit?” and then making a really clear and focused decision, say, “Okay, this is what I’m working on right now.”

And, of course, there’s lots of obstacles that are going to come in and try to throw us off. So, for me, concentration did not come easily. I remember, say, being in college and reading the same paragraph over and over and over again because by the time I got to the end of it, my attention would’ve wandered and I needed to start back over at the beginning. And I’ve seen through all the work that I’ve done with meditation, with mindfulness, I could put my mind to something and it’ll stay there.

So, the other skill here that’s really helpful that I want to offer to folks is being aware of the challenges or the hindrances or obstacles to concentration, and this is a really great tool to use when working on a project, to have a little checklist to run through, and just check and see, “Are any of these five things present? And if so, can I shift my focus into these qualities I’m working on, of interest, relaxation, and clarity?”

So, the first two are wanting and not wanting. So, really getting caught up in wanting to get somewhere, or craving something, or feeling irritated, aversive, not wanting to do this, wanting to get away from something, these will zap our energy and distract us. The second two are about energies. So, either feeling sleepy, lethargic, or feeling restless, anxious, too charged up, “So, I just want to check. How’s my energy? Am I sagging or am I kind of a little hyperactive?”

And then the third is doubt, and this one’s the real killer, “Am I doubting myself? Am I not sure I can do this? Am I undercutting my work here?” So, just being aware of these, just checking in and seeing, “Are any of these present?” already starts to shift the inner landscape. It’s when we’re not aware of these things that they really clobber us and drive the show. So, even if, say, we’re a little bit tired, if we’re aware of that, just that awareness starts to bring more energy.

Or, if there’s some doubt present, as soon as we see it, we’re like, “Oh, wow, look. I’m doubting myself. I’m worried I’m not going to be able to do this or it’s not going to be good.” Just that awareness is already stepping outside of the doubt a little bit. Checking on each of those can give us more access to concentration when we’re working on a project.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, you say there are five things on the checklist?

Oren Jay Sofer
Yup. Wanting and not wanting, so this is about craving and pulling away from things, like, “Oh, I can’t wait to get to lunch,” or, “When am I going to get to the movie tonight and go on that thing?” It’s like, “Well, that’s tonight. Can I focus on what’s happening now?” Or, “Oh, God, I’m so nervous about having to present this. I don’t want to do that,” and so worry, we’re resisting something. It’s like, “Well, that’s not now. Let’s just focus on the project. Let’s just be here with what’s happening right in front of me.”

So, just being aware. It’s like when you walk outside of your house, or apartment, and you want to dress appropriately, you want to know what the weather is like. Same way, you sit down to do a project, you want to be prepared to work with the internal weather. Like, what are the conditions that are going to try to throw you off? So, if it’s going to be really cold, you want to bring a parka. If it’s going to be really wet, you want to bring a raincoat.

In the same way, if you’re working with sleepiness and you’re feeling really lethargic and doubtful, it’s like, “Okay, how can I psych myself up? How can I access a little bit more energy? Sit up straight. Take a deep breath. Turn up the lights. I’m feeling doubt. Reflect on the things that I know I’m good at, all the times in the past that I’ve really come through.” One, we need to know what might interfere, and then, two, we need to meet it, we need to work with it head on and address it.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. Thank you. And so, when we have not wanting, what do you do with that? So, the awareness itself is helpful.

Oren Jay Sofer
Right, the awareness itself is helpful. Not wanting is usually about avoiding discomfort. So, it’s just based on biologically and the pleasure/pain principles. So, you want to look for, “Where is the unpleasant thing that I’m avoiding?” We’re often not aware of the unpleasant feeling that we’re trying to get away from. So, look for that unpleasant feeling, and then feel it.

Instead of trying to get away from it, which wastes a ton of energy and distracts us, take a deep breath, and go, “How bad is this right here and now? It’s a little unpleasant. Okay. So, how does it feel? Is my throat a little bit tight? I feel a little bit shaky, a little queasy in my stomach, a little pressure in my chest? What is it? What is it that I’m so afraid of?”

“Not in my mind, that’s the picture, that’s the thoughts, that’s the story. What is it I’m reacting to in my body? And if I can just feel that a little bit, it starts to settle because now I’m not running away from the demon in my mind. I’m actually meeting what’s real and true in the moment.”

Pete Mockaitis
So, let’s go more into not wanting. And maybe we can even go live, a demo. Let’s say there is a task I don’t want to do. Well, let’s pick a specific one. Let’s say, “Get some transactions categorized and organized into spreadsheet and sent off to the accountant.” You go, “Ugh, I don’t want to do that. And, often, I end up doing it very close to the deadline because I don’t want to do it. And, apparently, the Post Office is very full in April 15th so I’m not alone.” So, help me out there. So, here I am, I’m thinking, “Ugh, I don’t want to do that.”

Oren Jay Sofer
So, with anything we’re avoiding, there’s two essential kinds of strategies we can use to shift that. Let’s start with one we’re already talking about, which is turning towards the avoidance directly and engaging with it. So, the first step is what you already, which is to recognize the avoidance. A lot of the times, when we’re avoiding something, we haven’t even done that.

We’re not fully conscious that we’re avoiding it. We’re just kind of pushing it away, which means our attention is split, there are some underlying anxieties, so we need to develop enough self-awareness to recognize, “Wait a minute. Something is bugging me.” And then to really be honest with ourselves and acknowledge, “I don’t want to do this.” Okay, that’s the first step.

Then turn towards it inside. Take a deep breath and feel, “Okay, what does it feel like to not want to do this?” It feels, I don’t know, frazzled, you tell me. When you don’t want to do your taxes, when you don’t want to do that. If you stop and you take a deep breath, what’s the actual experience in your body, the sensations?

Pete Mockaitis
And that’s a cool distinction right there. So, we’re focused on bodily sensations as opposed to emotions, like, angry, sad?

Oren Jay Sofer
Yeah, that’s it. It’s going to the root level. So, the first level is going to be the thoughts, it’s, “I don’t have the time,” “I hate doing it,” “It’s too much to do.” Okay, then the next level is the emotions, which is, “I feel overwhelmed,” “I feel annoyed,” “I feel frustrated,” “I feel anxious.” We’re still, to some degree, on the conceptual level. In order for the patterning in our nervous system to start to shift and to have a little bit more flow and wiggle room, we need to engage on the level of sensation which is what’s actually driving us.

So, to feel in your body, “Okay, yeah, how does this actually feel?” And one question, so not everyone has quick easy access to their sensations, one great question to ask yourself is just, “Where in my body do I feel this? Like, is it in my throat? Is it in my chest? Is it in my belly? Or is it somewhere else?”

Pete Mockaitis
And it’s funny, I’m having a hard time with this. I think it’s like, “Ugh!”

Oren Jay Sofer
So, it’s kind of all over.

Pete Mockaitis
Yeah. Well, I guess if it’s not in my toes, it’s not in my calves, but it’s like, I don’t know, my neck and upper torso, it’s like instead of being filled with a zippy, “Hey, let’s dance a jig and sing a song in joy,” it’s like the opposite of that.

Oren Jay Sofer
It’s like a wet noodle.

Pete Mockaitis
Yeah, it’s like flopping, “Ugh!”

Oren Jay Sofer
So, this is great. This is great. So, we experience our bodies and our emotions and sensations in different ways, and sometimes an image is how it occurs to us. So, it’s kind of that deep sigh and that gesture you made with your shoulders and your torso in this kind of flapping wet noodle. So, what happens when you just take a moment, don’t have to be with it forever. This is the fear, it’s like, “If I feel this, I’m going to get stuck here.” To just take one moment to feel that on its own terms, the wet noodle, the kind of flappy and just, “How bad is it?”

Pete Mockaitis
It’s kind of like being bored.

Oren Jay Sofer
Yeah, it’s just what it is.

Pete Mockaitis
It’s not horrible, it’s just not fun, it’s like, “Okay, it’s just a flavor of boredom.”

Oren Jay Sofer
Yeah. So, you look the demon in the face, it’s like, “Oh, this is what this is.” That takes some of the wind out of its sails. It undercuts the source of resistance that’s driving it. Now, the other key strategy here, the other side that we need to work with, is the motivator. So, why is this important to you? What is this going to give you if you do it?

Pete Mockaitis
Gives you relief and keeps me out of jail.

Oren Jay Sofer
Yeah, gives you relief, gives you more time and energy to focus on other things that are important to you, and there’s a sense of a weight lifted, I’m imagining, when it’s done. So, now take a moment to just focus on the experience of relief and that weight lifted, and how good that feels. That can be what you want to navigate towards, like, “This is why I’m doing this.” So, you work from both angles, you kind of unplug the part that’s blocking you.

By feeling it and looking it in the face, “Okay, how bad is this? How uncomfortable is this, this thing that I’m avoiding?” And avoiding it actually gives it energy. To resist something, you’ve got to grab it first, you’ve got to pick it up. And when you pick it up, you actually give it energy. So, when you turn towards it, you’re just like, “All right, let’s just feel this. Let’s just see what this is.” Now, you’re not feeding it anymore, and it can start to peter out.

And then on the other side, “Why do this? What’s this going to give me? What’s important about this to me?” This is one of the things I talk about in the chapter on energy. One of the most sustainable sources of energy is willingness, knowing why we’re doing something. There’s tons of things in life we don’t like to do but if we can connect with the fact that we’re choosing to do it in some way, even if it’s, “You know, I don’t want to have the IRS come and take my house away,” or, “I don’t want to go to jail,” or, “I don’t want to get a speeding ticket so I’m going to drive the speed limit.” It’s like when we’re aware of why we’re doing it, we can tap into a different source of energy.

I think it’s really important, Pete, to get familiar with how it feels when we’re not avoiding something and we’re in alignment to really notice not just your thoughts and your emotions but, again, how it feels in your body, to feel connected and clear about what you’re doing and why. The more familiar you get with that experience, the more awake and aware you are, when you feel connected and aligned, the more quickly you will notice when you’re not.

It’s like developing a little bit of a baseline or a reference for, “Oh, yeah, this is what it feels like when I know what I’m doing and why, and I’m connected to my purpose, to my resources.” Then when you’re suddenly avoiding something, when you’re procrastinating, when there’s some resistance inside, we get really good at just kind of pushing through or pushing that away because it’s uncomfortable.

You’ll start to notice it more and be able to make different choices, and recognize, “You know, I’m doing the dishes right now. It doesn’t help me to not want to do it while I’m doing it. Like, I might as well just take a deep breath and relax, feel my feet on the ground, enjoy the warm soapy water, and clean the dishes.”

Or, “I’m taking my kid to music lessons right now. I’m not at home working on that project, even though I want to be. Like, let’s just relax and enjoy the time in the car.” We get the signal of the resistance when we notice more what it’s like when it’s not there, and then we can use whatever tools or resources we have, as we talked about through that resistance, to put it down.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. Well, Oren, this is huge and beautiful. Okay. So, we talked about some of these approaches to deal with we don’t feel like doing stuff and boosting resolve. I was going to go to energy next, so you gave us a tip right there. We tapped into the willingness and the underlying why. Any other perspectives on bringing about a greater energy?

Oren Jay Sofer
Yeah, absolutely. So, energy is huge. We have limited energy in our lives. And I think that the dominant culture in the modern world is this kind of all or nothing approach to energy. It’s this kind of extractive, get as much as possible, as fast as possible. We use caffeine. We tend to push past our limits and burn out. So, how do we develop more sustainable energy?

So, willingness, knowing why we’re doing something is one resource. Another really important resource for developing more sustainable energy is starting to tune into the cycles of activity and rest. So, everything in life moves through these cycles: the seasons, the night and the day, even our breath. All of the time, there are these cycles of doing and then being, doing and then being, but the pace of our lives and the level of stimulation we’re exposed to on a daily basis tends to mask that, and we get disconnected from it.

So, just starting to pay attention to when we’re busy, and then noticing, like, when you complete something, celebrate it, take a pause for a moment, breathe out. After you send an email, instead of rushing onto the next thing, “Great.” It doesn’t have to be long. I’m talking about, like, three seconds. That’s going to boost your energy because, instead of just pushing, pushing, pushing, pushing, pushing, pushing, we get the cycle. We do something and then we breathe out, and then we do something, and then we breathe out. We’re starting to feel this rhythm and it happens on a moment-to-moment level, it happens through the course of the day. That’s going to help us develop more energy.

One more tip I want to give on energy, and this one’s the real tricky one because it’s counterintuitive. If you want to use energy more effectively, initially, and this is just initially, slow down a little and try to feel more how you are working. Okay, I’ll tell you a short story. When I was in my 20s and just starting to learn to meditate, one of the meditation teachers I was training with pointed out, “Pay attention to how you brush your teeth, and just notice how you’re holding the toothbrush.”

And I noticed I had this kind of death grip on the toothbrush. I was squeezing it so hard when I brush my teeth, I was, “Why am I so tense brushing my teeth? I can actually relax. I can just hold the toothbrush with just the right amount of force, and then brush my teeth that way.” So, if you want to move an object, if you position your feet slightly apart, one in front of the other, and you bend your knees, you’ve got a lot of power.

So, balance and alignment conserve energy and create leverage. So, we can translate this into our work. How are we actually doing our work, both in our body and in our mind? Are we gripping that toothbrush really hard? Like, are we sitting at the keyboard with our shoulders hunched up and our jaw tight? Or, are we able to kind of relax, settle back, feel a sense of balance inside, an alignment, a clarity of purpose, and do things one at a time?

So, we take this kind of physical analogy and translate it into our work, into the relational space, instead of raising your voice and shouting and making a big scene, we can be more powerful if we speak at an even volume and a steady pace, and say what we need to say. So, there’s a sense of the more we become aware of how we’re using energy, we can start to channel it in more effective ways.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. Well, Oren, tell me, anything else you really want to make sure to share before we hear a couple of your favorite things?

Oren Jay Sofer
I think one of the principles, Pete, that runs throughout the book that I want to make sure we cover here because it shows up really in any area that we’re trying to learn or grow is this principle we find in a lot of different fields, from performance to trauma healing, which is called strategic discomfort.

So, it’s knowing how much challenge is the right amount. And I’m sure you’ve covered this with other guests in other ways, right? It’s like if we don’t challenge ourselves at all, we just stay comfortable and we don’t learn and grow. But if we take on too much, we end up feeling overwhelmed and either collapsing or burning out.

So, whatever the skill is, whatever the resource or capacity is we’re trying to develop, whether it’s resolve, patience, energy, or this kind of foundational skill of choosing where we place our attention, we need to use some wisdom and ask ourselves, “What’s needed here? What’s the right amount of friction and tension and challenge for me to grow beyond my edge?” And that’s a skill, that’s a tool that we can use in all different areas of our lives.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. And how do I assess that and get the right answer?

Oren Jay Sofer
Ask yourself this question, “What’s needed right now?” Not too much, not too little. We need to listen. We need to actually take a step back and check. And if we do that and we listen, and we’re honest with ourselves, we’ll know. So, whether it’s wanting to exercise more so that we have more energy in our lives, circling back to energy.

Of course, we didn’t talk about the fundamentals, like eating healthy, getting enough exercise, drinking enough water, trying to have healthy sleep, hygiene. Like, these are the foundations of energy. So, there’s an assumption that we’re attending to those things. But, say, you’re wanting to exercise more, it’s like, “What’s a reasonable goal?” and setting your aim on that, not overshooting because then we end up not doing it and giving up, and not undershooting because then we’re not actually challenging ourselves.

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

Oren Jay Sofer
Yeah, I thought about this. There are so many great books out there but one that came to mind that I read a few years ago that I think really puts us in touch with the preciousness of our time here is the book When Breath Becomes Air by Paul Kalanithi. He was a doctor who wrote about the end of his life as he died from cancer. A really beautiful short moving book.

Pete Mockaitis
And a favorite quote?

Oren Jay Sofer
This is from James R. Doty, a book called Into the Magic Shop, “It can hurt to go through your life with your heart open but not as much as it does to go through your life with your heart closed.”

Pete Mockaitis
And is there a particular nugget you share in your courses, your books, your body of work that people really love, resonate with, and quote back to you often?

Oren Jay Sofer
Yeah, I really think it’s the sense of we’re always practicing something. How we live every day is how we will live every day. And as you said, you’ve kind of alluded to earlier in the show is practice doesn’t make perfect. Practice makes permanent. So, be careful and clear about what we’re practicing every day. We have this immense capacity for goodness, resilience, and empowerment in our lives if we know how to develop it every day. So, we can use our time to develop these amazing resources and be a real source of change, and goodness, and joy to the people around us.

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

Oren Jay Sofer
Yeah, my website is probably the best place, OrenJaySofer.com. Also, active on social media @orenjaysofer.

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

Oren Jay Sofer
I love that question. I would say step outside of your habits and the negativity bias, and focus on the ways that you do contribute in your work and in your life. When we really notice and pay attention to the ways we contribute, we feel more energy, we experience more joy, we have more fulfillment, and it makes us more effective. It will also guide us to make better decisions about how we spend our time, what we do and don’t do.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. Oren, thank you. This has been a treat. I wish you much courage, love, and integrity.

Oren Jay Sofer
Thanks, Pete. You, too. It’s great to see you again.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. Thank you. Cool.

915: How to Maximize the Power of Generational Diversity at Work with Dr. Tim Elmore

By | Podcasts | One Comment

 

Tim Elmore reveals the keys to transforming generational differences into opportunities for enhanced collaboration.

You’ll Learn:

  1. How generalizations across the generations can be both helpful and harmful
  2. The do’s and don’ts of interacting with each generation
  3. The keys to turning generational conflict into team harmony

 

About Tim

Dr. Tim Elmore is founder and CEO of Growing Leaders (www.growingleaders.com), an Atlanta‐based non‐profit organization created to develop emerging leaders. His work grew out of 20 years serving alongside Dr. John C. Maxwell.

Elmore has appeared in The Wall Street Journal, the Washington Post, USA Today, Psychology Today and he’s been featured on CNN’s Headline News, Fox Business, Newsmax TV and Fox and Friends to talk about leading multiple generations in the marketplace.

He has written over 35 books, including Habitudes: Images That Form Leadership Habits and Attitudes, and his latest, A New Kind of Diversity: Making the Different Generations on Your Team a Competitive Advantage.

Resources Mentioned

Thank you, sponsors!

Tim Elmore Interview Transcript

Pete Mockaitis

Tim, welcome back to How to be Awesome at Your Job.

Tim Elmore

Thank you, Pete. Great to be with you.

Pete Mockaitis

Well, I’m excited to dig into the wisdom of your book A New Kind of Diversity: Making the Different Generations on Your Team a Competitive Advantage. But first, you have survived a plane crash and, somehow, we never talked about that last time. What’s the deal here?

Tim Elmore

Yeah, yeah. Well, I don’t just go around starting conversations with, “Hey, did you know I survived a plane crash?”

Pete Mockaitis

Yeah. Well, we should have.

Tim Elmore

Well, maybe.

Pete Mockaitis

Well, we’re going to start this one that way, Tim.

Tim Elmore

Yeah. Well, the crazy thing was that was years and years ago, but I was in New Zealand, it was a private plane, I was being flown with a buddy of mine, by a pilot that was not instrument rated, and he was trying to land on a field. I was going to speak at a big youth camp back then 30 years ago, and he wasn’t able to land the plane. He started to come down. The trees or the forest are right here. He realizes he can’t touch down in time before the trees began, so he takes the plane, shoots it straight up in the air.

He says, “Tighten your seatbelts. I got to try this landing again.” But as he’s shooting up into the air, we get about 120 feet in the air, and the engine stalls, and we drop to the ground. So, about 12 feet, or, excuse me, 12 stories we dropped. And Grant, the pilot, went right through the windshield. It was awful.

Pete Mockaitis

Oh, my goodness.

Tim Elmore

And the other three of us were beat up and thrown around, our seatbelts broke too, but we all survived. So, it was quite the deal, yeah. But, as you can imagine, I was in New Zealand. I had to get on a plane to fly back home. So, I had to jump back on the proverbial horse and ride again.

Pete Mockaitis

Wow! So, I don’t have a great deal of knowledge of aviation but how common is it to survive that fall that distance? This sounds more or less miraculous, Tim.

Tim Elmore
Yeah, it was. This sounds so cliché but I really do believe in miracles. I don’t spiritualize everything but I think, “My gosh, I’m still around for a reason. I got to make the most of my time.” I think my sense of urgency that I currently experience probably came from knowing at any moment I could be gone, and I want to make the very most of it.

So, I’m loving my family better, I’m about the business of what I do much better and less lackadaisical perhaps than before that time. But I think that’s the good that can come from the not so good along the way.

Pete Mockaitis

Wow! Okay. Well, I am grateful that you are alive and here, and we are speaking again. The last conversation I think was really rich with some juicy stories I thought about numerous times since. This book A New Kind of Diversity: Making the Different Generations on Your Team a Competitive Advantage I’ll tell you, I’ll be candid with you, Tim.

I usually shy away from the different generations generalizations content but I was like, “Tim is so darn good. If I could trust somebody to handle this decently, it’s going to be Tim.” So, let’s get some of the tough stuff out of the way. Like, Tim, isn’t this just wild over-generalization? And how is this even helpful?

Tim Elmore

Yeah, I do get that question, so please know you’re not alone at all. And, yet, I think there’s another part of our brain that would say, “But we do realize we’re a little different.” Twenty-somethings are a little different than 60-somethings. But ageism and chronocentrism almost always come up at this point.

Pete Mockaitis

Chronocentrism, I don’t think I’ve ever heard that word before.

Tim Elmore
Okay, so let me give you both, real quick, working definitions. Ageism is “Isn’t it true 60-somethings tend to think are like 20-somethings, regardless of the time and history where we are?” You’re more conservative when you’re older, you’re more progressive when you’re younger, blah, blah, blah, and that is true. There is an element of truth in that.

And chronocentrism is the tendency we have, at whatever life station we’re in, to think “We’re right and they’re wrong. The older, the younger. Kids are just fragile snowflakes today,” or, “Those old folks are just dinosaurs.”

Pete Mockaitis

Like ethnocentrism but chrono, time.

Tim Elmore

Exactly. Chronology, that’s right. You picked it up. You get an A on that test.

Pete Mockaitis

Oh, thank you. I was a Latin student, back in the day. It really expands the vocabulary.

Tim Elmore
It does. I’m sure it does, yeah. So, anyway, all that to say, my goal in this book is not to stereotype but to understand, so I’m trying to help readers. It’s not scientific. In fact, this is a social science, not a science, it’s soft science but it is, I think, a very helpful thing to have a bit of an encyclopedia. If you’re 58, let’s say, and you’re managing a company, and you’ve got these Gen Zers coming in, and you go, “Oh, my God, I don’t understand these kids today.”

To say, “Well, let me help you step into their brain just a little bit. Here’s the narrative that they’ve grown up in. Here’s the wet cement that they were shaped in,” and then to know a little bit. You’re a little bit more informed as you do that interview, or do that onboarding, or do the performance review.

Pete Mockaitis

Well, could you start by sharing with us maybe some differing survey results or researcher studies that say convincingly, “Yup, people in different generations do, in fact, tend to, on aggregate, on the whole, more often than not, think, operate differently in these kinds of ways”?

Tim Elmore

Yeah. Well, let me just share some really recent data that might be a fun fodder for discussion. When I talk to managers, for instance, at a workplace, and they’re asking, “Well, what should I expect from an interview with a 22-year-old recently out of college?” One of the things that Generation Z brings is a very paradoxical high sense of agency and high sense of anxiety at the same time.

So, the agency they feel, you know what that means, it’s like, “I got this. I can do this,” I think was fostered by the smartphone, “I’ve been looking at things since I was four years old on a tablet, I think I know all that I need to know to do this,” and so a Gen Zer comes in with a high sense of agency. At the same time, however, we all know, I think, that mental health issues are a thing right now for high school students, college students, young professionals; panic attacks, anxiety, depression.

But here’s the irony. I think anxiety was brought on by the same smartphone. So, the high sense of, “I’m in control,” and the high sense of, “I’m out of control,” come from the smart device that, I think, ambushed us and we did not know what it would do, particularly to the younger generations. So, I know it does not fully answer your question but that’s something I think we that are in midlife need to know. It’s going to be a thing.

Pete Mockaitis

Well, yeah, certainly there’s no doubt that our upbringings are different. I just turned 40 recently.

Tim Elmore

Yeah. Okay. Congratulations and happy birthday.

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, thank you. I remember our home was kind of cutting edge when we had dial-up internet in my youth but I certainly had several years on this planet, which I was able to read, and we didn’t have the internet, so that was a thing that was going on and I could see certainly how that can shape things. But I guess, yes, what I’m really driving at is in terms of maybe incidences of anxiety, depression, or the proportion of people who strongly agree with this kind of statement is wildly different between folks who are 62 versus 22. Can you lay some of those sharp distinctions down for us?

Tim Elmore

Okay, sure. Yeah. Well, let me tell two quick stories that I think will vividly illustrate what you’re asking about. In the book, I talk about Tony, true story. Tony, two years ago, was a senior in college at Ohio University, took a part-time job during his senior year at a paint store, and loved his job, part-time. During that senior year, he also happened to get on TikTok. Of course, he did.

So, he’s on TikTok and he’s now posting videos of himself mixing paints together. He’s very clever, he’s very creative. His account goes viral. Pete, by the time he gets 1.8 million followers, and 37 million views, he realizes, “I should share this with the executives here. We could monetize this.” So, he puts a little slide deck together to make a presentation to the executive team, and he doesn’t get one person interested in hearing from him. He doesn’t get one set of eyeballs to look at his slide deck. Tony did get something, however, that he didn’t expect. He got fired.

Pete Mockaitis

Okay.

Tim Elmore

Yup. So, these older executives were just sure this young kid didn’t know a thing, was probably stealing the paint, probably distracting to the customers, probably doing this on company time, and so they let him go. Well, Tony graduates, moves from Ohio to Florida, now has over 2 million followers, and has started his own paint store.

Pete Mockaitis

There you go.

Tim Elmore

Now, I’m sure there’s parts in the story we don’t understand but here’s one thing I do understand. It was a picture of the wide gap between the older generations that were in charge that had been doing the same for 30, 40 years, and were pretty sure they know what they’re doing. But here’s a young buck coming up, saying, “There’s a new platform that I’m on. Maybe you don’t have intuition on how we could use this. I think I do.”

So, I think, just to answer your question specifically, I don’t think, very often, people over 40 years old realize that the age of authority is dropping in the workplace. The age of authority is dropping. Think about a century ago. The age of authority was very high. In fact, grandma, grandpa, you listened to them because they’ve been around 70 years, whatever they say, man, they collected a lot of wisdom.

Well, today, rapid change happens. In fact, change happens so rapidly that young people are getting things faster than old people, and so they may have…well, first of all, they may be starting a company when they’re 21 years old, but I think we don’t realize that we need both timeless wisdom or timeless insight, and timely intuition.

So, I talk about this in the book. Timeless insight, people that have been around the block a few times can share the stuff they know how to succeed at this company. But the timely intuition very often comes from the young. They can see where culture is going. And like Tony, they may figure out very creative ways to do things differently and capture another million and a half people that the older folks would not have found.

So, I’ll just stop there but that would just be one picture of what I’m talking about.

Pete Mockaitis

That is an intriguing picture. And so, the age of authority, that’s intriguing. Is it, in fact, true that the average age of person promoted to CEO of a Fortune 500 company is lower now than it was 10, 20, 40 years ago?

Tim Elmore

Yes, it is.

Pete Mockaitis

Okay. All right.

Tim Elmore

Yeah, so it’s dropping slowly not rapidly because we still celebrate whatever, that stage. And, by the way, you should know, I think you should know, 72% of high school students, public high school students in America, want to be an entrepreneur, seven out of ten. Now, are they all going to succeed? Probably not. But the fact that seven out of ten want to start something more than join something, that tells me something.

It tells me when they look at the current set of jobs or corporations to join, they go, “I want to start my own. I don’t know if I want to join that antiquated, stuffy, 9:00-to-5:00, check in, clock in, deal there.” Now, they may need to learn but I just believe I’ve got to do more listening as I age, not just telling. So, I argue in the book, we need fluid intelligence, that’s our first 40 years, we need crystallized intelligence, that’s our second 40 years.

And right now, we’re colliding more than collaborating in many workplaces. Age discrimination lawsuits are up at Fortune 500 companies, like IBM, Marriott, WeWork. It’s ridiculous.

Pete Mockaitis
Is it the older generation suing or the younger generation suing?

Tim Elmore

It’s both. Think about it. The old are suing the company because they feel like, “You didn’t promote me because you think I’m too old.” But the young are saying the same, “You didn’t promote me because you think I’m not wise enough or old enough. You think I’m too young.” So, I feel for CEOs that are having to call upon their legal counsel to just solve a feud at the workplace when if we were really learning to value the strengths that each generation brought to the table, we could really, really gain from this.

The book was designed really to be an encyclopedia where you don’t have to read the whole thing but you might want to read chapter seven and eight because you need help with Gen Zers and Millennials or whatever, that sort of thing. That’s really what I wanted. Too often, we were not. Well, here’s what I really, really argue for, Pete, all the time.

We’ve got to turn our frustration into fascination with each other. And I believe there’s something I can be fascinated with all four generations at my nonprofit, and the five generations that many people listening right now might have at their organization, but we’re having a difficult time because we speak different languages, we have different values oftentimes.

When you think about the marches that took place in 2020, the protests, Black Lives Matter and so forth, I’m sure there’s exceptions to this rule, but it was mostly the Millennials and the Gen Zers who were marching, mostly, and most of the Gen Xers and Boomers are going, “What? What are you doing? Stop wrecking that retail outlet there,” whatever, whatever. And I just feel like it was a picture of young and old not understanding each other’s mindsets.

Pete Mockaitis

All right. So, Tim, give us the overview. So, we are almost in 2024 now. Let’s name the generations, roughly how old are they today?

Tim Elmore

Yeah, okay. Good question.

Pete Mockaitis

Just to orient us for starters.

Tim Elmore

Yeah. First of all, we say to our listeners, this is an art, not a science, as I mentioned before. This is not psychology. Everybody has a unique personality. This is sociology. We talk about the narratives of generations. So, the oldest generation, Pete, that might still be in the workplace are past retirement age, typical retirement age, but people are living longer, working longer, so the Builder generation would’ve been born 1929 and 1945.

Many of our people in Washington, D.C. running our country right now are Builder generation folks, okay? President Biden, 81 years old right now. And, by the way, I’ll just share, this is not a partisan statement, but they should be paving the way for the next gen coming up rather than holding on to their office, but that’s the Builder generation. They were called Builders because they built so much out of so little. Think about the years they were born, 1929 to 1945. Great Depression. World War II.

The Baby Boomers come along next, 1946 to 1964, and they were called Boomers because, well, frankly, nine months after World War II was over, the maternity wards filled up. So, 76.4 million people were born in 18 years. That never happened before at all in America. They were called Boomers, or we, I’m a Boomer, we were called Baby Boomers because there was a boom of babies for 18 years.

After the Baby Boomers come the Baby Busters, or Generation X, 1965 to 1982. So, you might be the tail end of that generation. Are you kind of a Xlennial where you’re kind of a Gen X Millennial?

Pete Mockaitis

That’s a hard word to say.

Tim Elmore

Yes, it is, especially for me.

Pete Mockaitis

I’m not going to even try, Tim. You’re bold. Yes, I was born in 1983. And it’s funny, I don’t resonate a lot with either generational description because I’m right on the border.

Tim Elmore

Yeah. Well, social scientists would call you a Tweener. After you’re five years at the tail end of one generation, or five years at the beginning of another, you’re probably going to adopt characteristics of both and neither. And that’s me with Boomers and Xers.

Pete Mockaitis

I’m not a Tweaker but a Tweener?

Tim Elmore

That’s right. Not a Tweaker; a Tweener. That’s right.

Pete Mockaitis

Set the record straight.

Tim Elmore

Let it be known. Let it be known. That’s right. All right. So, Gen X was first called Baby Busters because their generation started with the public introduction of the birth control pill, so instead of a boom, it was a bust. If you add the contraceptive, you add on top Roe v. Wade in 1973, you have a shrinking population not a booming population. So, it’s two hills and two valleys. It’s a boom of babies and then it drops to a valley with the Xers.

Another boom with the Millennials who are the next generation coming, so ’83 to 2000, basically the ‘80s and ‘90s kids, and the Millennials are the largest generation in American history, 80 million strong. They’re the number one population in the workforce right now.

Pete Mockaitis

I’m sorry, didn’t you say never before since have you seen such a fertility rate but that’s because we started from a smaller base back in the day?

Tim Elmore

Yes.

Pete Mockaitis

Okay. I’m with you. So, it’s a larger growth number but it’s a smaller rate.

Tim Elmore

Correct. Yeah, that’s exactly right.

Pete Mockaitis
I’m with you.

Tim Elmore

Yeah, yeah. So, Boomers were 76 million, Millennials are 80 million. But then Gen Z follows Gen Y, or the Millennials, and they are really the kids that had been born at the turn of the century, and they have had a very, very different experience. Think about their generation, even though they were just babies, first of all, the century started with the dotcom era bubble bursting.

Y2K, we thought the world was going to explode, and then it didn’t. September 11, 2001 where all parents everywhere got scared to death for their children. Then you had, oh, my gosh, the smartphone being released and growing into a normalized thing.

So, Gen Z would follow the Millennials, the Millennials follows Gen X, Gen X follows Baby Boomers, and Baby Boomers follow the Builders, so there you have it.

Pete Mockaitis

Okay. So, you make a point, so we want to turn frustration into fascination. And my buddy, Steve, has strong opinions about Boomers. He’s a listener and he cracks me up, he said, “Hey, so one of your guests said he put himself through grad school with juggling. I thought, ‘Okay, this guy is a Boomer.’” And he’s like, “Boomers, man, they lived their life on tutorial mode. It’s not even easy mode in the video game. It’s tutorial mode where they tell which buttons to push. You can go through grad school and pay for it by juggling? Like, good luck, you’re going to have at least a decade of student loan debt if you tried to pull off an after-school job to fund your stuff.” So, he has some strong views on the Boomer population.

And so, talk to us then about that core, the frustration versus fascination, the conflict instead of collaboration. So, lay it on us, Tim.

Tim Elmore

Okay. Well, first of all, the stereotyping, and, by the way, Steve is probably a great guy, I would call that a stereotype. He may know a case or two or three but I think we lump all older people as they’re all talking about how they walked to school uphill both ways in the snow, that sort of thing. So, Boomers are stereotyped as this dinosaur that has a very, very reconstructed memory of the past that’s getting bigger and bigger every year.

But I tell you what, a Baby Boomer has a stereotype about Millennials and Gen Z, “All the Millennials are narcissistic, and all those Gen Zers are fragile snowflakes,” so we’ve all heard these terms. But here’s what I know about the human brain. I talk about this in the book. Two things. Number one, people develop a little bit like wet cement.

So, when cement is laid, let’s say a new sidewalk is laid in the neighborhood. On day one, you can press your handprint into that sidewalk very easily because it’s wet. In the same way, during the first 20 plus years of our life, the neuropathways in our brain are very plastic. The plasticity is very, very soft and you can learn quick and adapt quick, and it’s just like wet cement.

As we grow older, I don’t want to say it hardens, but a little bit like wet cement, it’s going to take a jackhammer by the time you’re 40 to change that brain, to change your mind over something. And so, in the book, I put a two-page spread that’s a generation chart where I talk about interviews and both qualitative and quantitative data I gathered on each generation, and I gave a life paradigm, a mantra for each one, their view of authority, their view of education, their view of the future, their sense of identity is very different.

The sense of identity for the Builder generation is, “I am humble. My mom and dad grew up in the Great Depression. You were just all humble back then. It was wrong to be anything but humble.” For Gen Z, their identity is very fluid. They may change their gender identity, and it’s fluid.

So, I just think it’s helpful for a colleague or a boss to know, “I just need to know this information to know, not to gasp, when I’m talking to someone from a different generation.” And here’s the other thing I know about our brains. When we see differences, we tend to distress, we tend to avoid. Think about it, Pete, let’s just take you and me.

If you and I didn’t enjoy each other, and you saw me talking with a bunch of Boomers with gray hair and no hair, and we’re all just good old boys talking at the watercooler, you might go, “Hmm, not my people. I don’t think I want to join that kind,” because we know it’s going to take work to really identify with that group of people, and we don’t want to do that work so we find our own people who talk like us, act like us, vote like us. That’s just a natural thing. We don’t want to work. We will find our own people where it’s less work.

And I argue in this book, you get better if you’re willing to do the work to connect with somebody from a different generation. So, let me stop there, let you volley back.

Pete Mockaitis

I think that’s a strong thesis and I think that’s true of so many domains. I guess diversity in every variety, first of all, and then just our general tendency to want to not to work and be comfortable, but also the downside of too much time and comfort results in atrophy and not growing and straightening and sharpening things.

So, with it being said that this is sociology and that these are broad generalizations and exceptions abound there, why don’t you go ahead and share with us some of those tidbits from this table to give us a feel for these pieces?

Tim Elmore

So, I had so much fun going to retirement villages and talking to the Builder generation folks and then collecting some quantitative data and sorting it. But the mantra for the Builder generation, remember, 1929 and 1945, their mantra when they entered the workforce was “Be grateful you have a job,” and that’s understandable, isn’t it?

My dad is a perfect example. My dad was born in 1930, so the first decade of his life was the Great Depression, the next five years, World War II, that’s what shaped him. He just passed away in 2020 at 90 years old. He’s frugal, he’s conservative, he’s grateful. And we save the wrapping paper at Christmas, we save every rubber band and plastic bag known to man. We have it up in the attic. You might need it next year. That was what they were conditioned to do. And I love the spirit of that generation, “I am humble. I am grateful.”

The Baby Boomers come along, and I gave the Boomers the life paradigm, as they entered the workplace, “I want better,” because Boomers grew up in a time not of depression but of expansion. Shopping malls were popping up everywhere, McDonald’s was franchising, we had just won, or help to win, a World War. So, America was feeling really great about ourselves between 1946 and 1964.

The Xers come along. I gave the Xers the life paradigm “Keep it real. Keep it real.” So, that was a phrase that actually became a thing back then, mid ‘60s all the way through the ‘70s. But think about, just for a minute, let me teach some history here. Think about the years that that group of children were being formed and shaped before they moved into adulthood.

By the late 1960s, not only was the Vietnam War going on, it was on TV. We could watch it at the 6 o’clock news with Walter Cronkite. And even though LBJ in the White House kept saying everything was fine over there in Vietnam, we started seeing footage that said it’s not fine over there. And then you had the Watergate scandal.

Now we had a Democrat and a Republican both lying from the White House. There was a very real wall that went up in the hearts and minds of American adults that said, “I’m not going to blindly trust a leader.” And even though Gen X was just children back then, they saw a bunch of adults leading them, teaching them, coaching and parenting them, they grew up a little more cynical themselves, “Keep it real. Don’t tell me life is wonderful. Keep it real.”

Millennials come along. Okay, this your generation now even though you don’t claim them, Pete. Millennials come along, and I gave the Millennials the life paradigm “Life is a cafeteria.” Now, let me explain why. This is not throwing them under the bus. My two kids are both Millennials in their 30s. Just like you go to a cafeteria, you grab your tray and your plate, and you make up your meal, a little bit of broccoli, a little bit of roast beef, a little bit of Jello, and you tailor it for your tastebuds.

These young professionals are making almost every major decision of their life as if it were a buffet. Here are some examples. Years ago, my two kids stopped buying compact discs to get their music. Why would they buy a CD? “There might be five songs I don’t even like on that CD. I get one song at a time for my own playlist on Spotify, Apple Music. It’s a buffet. I make educational decisions this way. I graduate high school and go to two or three different colleges for one degree. One of them is overseas.”

And you see this because Millennials grew up in a time of digital customization. As Millennials grew up, the cellphone grew up. As Millennials grew up, the computer grew up, so they were very used to mixing and matching. So, I would say to an employer right now, “Just get ready for a bit of a free agent mindset. You could find loyalty in the Builder generation. Maybe you got to earn it with the Millennial generation.”

Okay, one last one. Gen Zers, oh, my gosh, I love these guys. So, I interviewed middle school kids, high school kids, college students, and young professionals. And as I listened to them, they were all very respectful. Some listeners may not believe that but they really were. They were very respectful but they were very candid. They were raw. And the mantra I gave them, as they moved into adulthood, was “I’m coping and hoping.”

So, think about that. They’re hopeful because they’re young, but right now they may feel like they’re just coping. They’re struggling perhaps with mental health issues. It’s been normalized to have anxiety disorders or maybe just wrestle with anxiety. It’s been normalized to say, “I’m seeing a therapist,” and I’m not putting that down. I’m just saying mental health problems are now a thing.

And if we just laugh at them, and say, “You bunch of fragile snowflakes. Get with it. Just suck it up and do your job,” I don’t think that lack of empathy is going to get us where we want to get to when we want to build some discipline and grit in this staff. So, let me stop. I’m sure you’re thinking something, Pete. I want to hear what you’re thinking.

Pete Mockaitis

Okay. I think that’s nice in terms of, all right, so we’ve got five generations, and a little bit of a vibe, and a little bit of a backstory. So, now let’s all crash them together in the workplace. Tell us, what are some of the top do’s and don’ts, maybe universally, and then specifically? I suppose we can have a very long conversation with a matrix, in this context, with this generation and that. So, we can’t do all that but maybe give us some universal do’s and don’ts, and then maybe a couple particular watchouts for areas of collision that are causing a lot of friction at work right now?

Tim Elmore

Yeah. Well, let me do the areas of friction right now because, listeners, if you’re in a workplace, you’re going to go, “Uh-huh, uh-huh, I’ve seen that.” So, number one, communication styles and mediums are different. You got to bring them together. In fact, I would say in the onboarding process, just say, “We use Slack,” or, “We don’t text,” or, “We do text,” whatever. But everybody’s going to come in based on a familiar source of way of communicating and I think we need to say, “To be together, let’s do this at work.” So, communication.

I think expectations. I have found in my dataset every generation comes in with slightly different expectations. So, I tell interviewers or HR hiring managers, “You need to talk over in the job interview preferences, expectations, and demands because those are going to tell you a lot about whether you can take this person on or not as a team member, and say, ‘You’re going to fit perfectly here,’ or stop the interview right now, and say, ‘I can just tell you right now, that’s not going to happen here. So, let me show you the door, and help you find another job.’”

So, real quick, I’ll make this fast. Preferences. All of us have different preferences. Sometimes there are some generations that will handle preferences as if they’re demands. They’re just something they wish were true but they’ll come in, and say, “I got to have this.” And I would say hiring managers need to say, “Is that really true? Do you have to have this because it’s not happening now? And if you just say, ‘I got to have it’ we can stop the interview right now.” Preferences, however, are only wishes, “I would prefer this to be the case.”

Expectations are stronger. When I began to talk about the expectation of a new potential team member, now they’re saying, “This is what I expect to be happening here. I expect a lot of autonomy. I expect to work from home,” or hybrid, or that sort of thing. But you want to find out, “What are you expecting here? Are you expecting unlimited PTO? Oh, wow, we should talk about that.”

And then, finally, demands. This is absolutely huge. Believe it or not, this is a huge issue that, far too often, we hire, get a year into it, and then we find them out, and it’s not a pretty picture. Demands are what perhaps either a boss or a new team member will say, “I must have this. Like, I want to talk about politics at work.”

Well, I think the wise boss will say, “You know what, we’re not going to stop working to see where we disagree on politics.” It’s my opinion but as I look at the dataset on companies that are thriving, you want to have some liberty but I’m telling you sometimes workers divide over a political issue, and now we’re not even good teammates.

So, that would be one, those three I just mentioned, communication styles. I think feedback, think for just a minute, Pete. How people prefer feedback might be extremely different and it might be good to establish the norms at this organization. For instance, Baby Boomers might still be fine with an annual review with full documentation. Well, Gen Z goes, “Seriously, I’m telling today no. I want multiple check-ins with my boss, and if I don’t get them, I think something is wrong.” And bosses are becoming exhausted because they go, “I can’t do that. I can’t watch over you and say good job, good job, good job,” or whatever, that sort of thing.

So, I feel like just talking about feedback. So, I have an entire chapter I bring up these issues that are seen differently primarily by the majority of each of these demographics and how we might approach them to kind of lubricate the friction.

Pete Mockaitis

Well, it sounds like perhaps universal principle with these is to just upfront, in advance, discuss, “Hey, these are sort of our norms and practices, and how we roll, how we do things, what we value, just so you’re aware. You can expect this from us and you probably can expect that from us.” Just short-circuiting the surprises in advance.

Tim Elmore

Yes, exactly. That’s exactly it. In fact, one of the statements that you heard a million times, I say in the book, “Conflict expands based on the distance between expectations and reality.” Conflict expands based on the distance between the expectations of what I expect in this reality. So, real quick, if I tell my wife I’m going to be home at 7:00 o’clock for dinner, and I get home at 7:05, no big deal. I get home at 9:30, it’s a big deal. We have a conversation.

And it’s not because she can’t live without me for two and a half hours. It’s because I created a different expectation that causes friction inside. So, that’s just good behavioral science that I think leaders ought to know, teammates ought to know, and you’re right, talk about it upfront, get it out in the open.

Pete Mockaitis

Okay. And so, what are some don’ts, like, “Don’t do this”?

Tim Elmore

Yeah. Well, I have found that my generation, I’m a Baby Boomer, we tend to just want to tell those younger generations what to do. And so, let me tell you what I’m doing, I’m going to get very personal now, Pete. As a Baby Boomer who’s 63 years old, will be 64 next month, you know how we use that phrase “forever and ever and ever,” “this is a leg you got to stand on”? So, I take the letters A, L, E, G. It’s a simple acronym but I follow it to a tee as I interact with perhaps younger teammates that just do something that I go, “I do not understand what you just did or said or why you did it.”

So, the letter A in ALEG, I want to start by asking not telling. Instead of barking out “What the *toot* were you thinking when you did that?” I want to say, “Tell me what your thinking was. Tell me why you made that decision.” And I need to be genuine about it. Ask instead of tell. When I ask questions instead of tell, they suddenly feel valued rather than condescended to.

The letter L is listen. It does very little good to ask questions if we’re not willing to really listen to them. So, when I ask, they feel valued. When I listen, they feel heard. I believe the statement “Being heard is so close to being loved that, for the average person, it’s indistinguishable.” So, this is an appropriate way just to say “I care about you. I love you. I’m listening.”

The letter E is empathize. So, when I empathize, they feel understood. I want to just say, “Let’s get to the bottom line.” But empathizing means I say things, like, “Oh, my gosh, I had no idea you went through that,” or, “Wow, I bet that made you feel terrible when that happened.” Something like that where I’m not just listening but I’m sharing with them, “I’m really getting you.”

I’m telling you, Pete, if I’m asking, they feel valued; listening they feel heard; empathize they feel understood, now I’ve earned my right to practice the letter G, which is to guide them. As their boss, I might have some guidance but they’re so ready to reciprocate, respect, and listening, and so forth because I’ve taken the time to really listen. Think about a workplace that everybody was standing on that leg, I can’t help but think we just have better workplaces.

Pete Mockaitis

Yes, thank you. You also have a fun turn-of-a-phrase, reverse mentoring.

Tim Elmore

Yes.

Pete Mockaitis

What is that? And how do we do it?

Tim Elmore

Oh, my gosh. It’s my favorite activity that I do and we recommend it to different people. So, listeners, I challenge you with this homework assignment. Reverse mentoring is what it sounds like. So, you get two people from different generations, older and younger, doesn’t matter which two but make sure there’s an older and a younger one definitively, and maybe you go to coffee, or maybe you have lunch together, but you swap stories first. You’re going to almost always find common ground when you swap stories.

Then the older person naturally coaches up the younger in, “Here’s how to succeed at this workplace,” but then you switch hats, and the younger is now mentoring the older perhaps on the latest app they just got and we could use it for marketing. Remember Tony, early in the conversation? So, you’re both doing this.

So, I meet with Andrew on a regular basis. I love Andrew. He’s my VP of content and he’s 30 years younger than me. I meet with Cam. Cam is on that content team, 40 years younger than me, recently minted from the University of Michigan. Brilliant guy. I learn every single time I’m with them. We laugh. We hug.

And I’m not saying this is a cheesy syrupy environment but we have so much fun because we’ve all checked our logos and egos at the door and we’re ready to learn from each other, and both are mentoring and both are learning. So, I just think that’s what we got to be like today in this rapidly changing world we live in.

Pete Mockaitis

Oh, lovely. Thank you. Now, could you share a favorite quote, something you find inspiring?

Tim Elmore

Well, in the beginning of the book, I share a really fun quote. My friend Derrick Johnson from Orlando said this and I just love it. Here’s what he said, “If you think you’re smarter than the previous generation, consider this. Fifty years ago, the owner’s manual of a car told you how to adjust the valves. Today, it warned you not to drink the contents of the battery.” And so, I’m thinking, “Oh, my gosh, we’re definitely evolving right now.

Pete Mockaitis

All right. And can you share a favorite study or experiment or bit of research?

Tim Elmore

Way back in 1968, research was done that proved that young people, I think it’s true about all people but back then the experiment was with students, students performed better under a teacher who has high expectations. That makes sense. In other words, when a control group…well, really, it’s two control groups who went in.

But one teacher was told, “These are average students. You can have average expectations.” But the other group, the teacher was told, “Now, don’t you let these kids talk you out of working hard. These are genius kids. They’re brilliant kids. You expect a lot of them,” you can imagine the results. The teacher that expected a lot had grades that were per student a grade and a half higher. But they were told later, after the experiment, both groups were average IQ students but the performance was so great.

Now, keep going. It was in the ‘70s they began to realize that high expectations alone don’t do the trick because some kids feel like, “Oh, you’re expecting too much of me,” and they spiral downward and they give up. It wasn’t until the ‘90s when research came out that showed this, and this is the piece I want everybody to hear.

When a teacher or a leader has both high expectations and high belief, it’s almost magical. High expectation, “I expect a lot of you,” and high belief, “And I know you, and I know you can do this.” It’s just huge. So, that’d be my favorite research that I’m trying to put to use every day here.

Pete Mockaitis

Can you help distinguish between expectation and belief? Because in some ways, there’s a strong overlap, and so I want to get really clear on how they’re different.

Tim Elmore

Yeah. So, I would say they’re cousins but not twins. So, if I only have high expectations of, let’s say, a person but I don’t have high belief, it feels harsh, “You expect a lot of me but I don’t get the feeling you actually believe I’m going to do it. You just demand, demand, demand.” So, high expectations without high belief feels harsh.

High belief without high expectation feels hollow, “You say you believe in me, mom, but you don’t actually expect me to come through.” You see what I’m saying? So, one is about I’m demanding or holding you to a high standard but belief becomes much more personal. So, let me give you the phrase that Ivy League schools found was that magical I mentioned earlier.

Here’s the phrase, and I quote, “I’m giving you this hard feedback because I have high expectations of you, and I know you can reach them.” Do you see how that kind of gets to, “I expect a lot but I know you, Josh. I know you can do this. I’ve watched you. You have it in you to do this.” The research shows effort went up a minimum of 40% all the way up to 320% in males. I think there are a lot of boys that said, “I’ve never had a dad say something like that to me.” So, that’s what I mean the difference between the personalness of belief and maybe the hardness of high expectation.

Pete Mockaitis

Okay. And a favorite book?

Tim Elmore

It’s a book by Arthur Brooks, the most popular teacher at Harvard University. He wrote a book called From Strength to Strength, and that book just absolutely lit me on fire. But he wrote another book that I want to push, if you don’t mind. He just published a book called Build the Life You Want.

He wrote it with Oprah Winfrey because she found him, and said, “Arthur, you’re amazing.” So, it’s really about the art of really becoming happier but that sounds so cliché.

Pete Mockaitis

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

Tim Elmore

Well, my name is Tim Elmore, so TimElmore.com. I have lots of free stuff on that site but also if you ever wanted me to come and speak that’s where you would do it. But, also, the nonprofit that I started focusing on the emerging generation and where you can find the book A New Kind of Diversity is GrowingLeaders.com. Thank you for asking that, Pete. I appreciate it.

Pete Mockaitis

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

Tim Elmore

Yeah. Well, I would really like you to practice that reverse mentoring I just mentioned because I have found, if I’m willing to do the work, I always come up better. The illustration I want to give you, the challenge is this. If you and I were to hop on a plane and fly, let’s say, to China, we would hop off that plane there in Beijing, knowing we’re going to have to work harder to connect with people here. And we would naturally think that because we’re going, “Oh, my gosh, they speak a different language here. They have different customs here. They have different values here.” Bingo.

Would you interact with somebody from a very different generation, different language, different customs, different values? So, if I’m willing to do the work over there in China, be willing to do the work here at home with that person you’re apt to not spend time with because you think they’re so old they’re worthless, or you think they’re so young they’re worthless, when, in reality, they’re a wealth of wisdom inside, just not the wisdom you have.

Pete Mockaitis

All right. Well, Tim, this has been fun. Thank you. I wish you much luck interacting with different generations.

Tim Elmore

Thank you, Pete. You, too. Good to see you again.

914: Turning Awkwardness Into Your Greatest Asset with Henna Pryor

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Henna Pryor reframes awkwardness and shows how we can turn it into a superpower.

You’ll Learn:

  1. How not embracing awkwardness is hurting our performance
  2. How to work out your awkwardness muscles
  3. How to release the discomfort that follows awkward moments

About Henna

Henna Pryor, PCC is 2x TEDx and Global Keynote Speaker, Workplace Performance Expert, Author, and Executive Coach. Her talks blend 2 decades of work with corporate leaders and teams, with a modern, science-based approach to taking more strategic risks and being braver in the work that we do.

Resources Mentioned

Henna Pryor Interview Transcript

Pete Mockaitis
Henna, welcome to How to be Awesome at Your Job.

Henna Pryor
Thank you for having me, and it’s the greatest podcast name, I think, I have ever heard.

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, well, thank you. That’s what we like to hear. We try. Well, I’m excited to hear about the wisdom you’ve got for us in your book Good Awkward: How to Embrace the Embarrassing and Celebrate the Cringe to Become The Bravest You. But first, we need to hear what is the story with you being a genuine bonafide princess?

Henna Pryor
It’s not so much a story, it’s more of a fun fact. So, my parents are both South Asian. My dad was born in India, my mom was born in Pakistan, and so, technically, I am a 32nd generation Pakistani princess, which just means, bloodline, I am from a royal bloodline. Now, that’s said, Pakistan is no longer a monarchy, so my princess status means bopkiss, absolutely nothing. I get no perks whatsoever.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, do your loved ones treat you like a princess?

Henna Pryor
Most days. Most days. I think I get trolled in even measure but, yeah, I get some good treatment.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. Nifty. So, nothing happens then, like if you visit Pakistan or you’re…?

Henna Pryor
No. No red carpet, no elephants. My grandfather, my mom’s father, was treated with a little bit of, let’s call it, extra respect due to his family name but, really, as the generations go on, it’s less and less cool. There’s really no measurable perks. I’m still waiting.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. There’s no certificate, no jewels.

Henna Pryor
No.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay.

Henna Pryor
No. I wish but no.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. Well, now, I know. I appreciate that. That was fun. Well, now tell us a little bit, when it comes to awkwardness, first of all, I just got to hear, since you’re an authority on awkwardness and I’ve just got to go here, first and foremost, I find it very annoying, and maybe you do this, so sorry.

Henna Pryor
That’ll be even more awkward here.

Pete Mockaitis
This hasn’t happened much since I’ve been a grown up as opposed to maybe like high school/college, when someone just proclaims, “Awkward!” It’s like, “Oh, wow.” That just grates on me so much, it’s like, “This is not helpful and now it’s way more awkward because you’ve just proclaimed it as such.” Since you’re an awkwardness expert, what is your hot take on this phenomenon?

Henna Pryor
Yeah. So, it’s funny, I don’t mind when people claim it. I think what you’re describing is when they claim it so loudly and ostentatiously that it draws even a greater magnified lens to whatever the experience was. And so, ironically, the avoidance of awkwardness increases awkwardness. So, I actually teach people it’s okay to name it in the room.

It’s when we make a really big audacious deal out of it, “Awkward!” kind of the way you did it, that it actually almost has the opposite effect, where it adds to the feeling of attention is on this, embarrassment. When we subtly name it, it actually allows us to relax and move on. But I think when we amplify it that way, it can actually make it linger longer than it needs to, and draw an even brighter spotlight to something that maybe people didn’t even notice that much in the first place.

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, certainly. Like, “Hey, I’m sorry, this is sort of awkward but your credit card has been declined.” It’s like, “Yeah, yeah, fair enough. All right. Well, let’s try another one,” and that’s that, versus yelling it loud and proud.

Henna Pryor
Shouting. Right, I agree. Yeah, I think the whole point of navigating our awkwardness has to do with the idea that we are in this tension space between who we believe we are and who we think other people see in that moment, “Oh, my gosh, they think I’m someone who has terrible credit, whose card was declined.” I might feel a bit awkward about it, but the whole problem with the emotion of the thing that we tend to wrestle with is what we think other people see in that moment. So, if we declare it loudly, we’re just putting more eyes on that version, it’s kind of counterproductive.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. So, tell us, any particularly surprising or fascinating discoveries you’ve made about us humans and awkwardness as you’ve dived into this research?

Henna Pryor
Yeah, several, and I think, especially as it relates to your topic of expertise here about being awesome at your job and being a high-performer at work, there are some very interesting data that came out in the last year or two about how catering and performing actually decreases our workplace performance. So, I’ll explain what I mean by that.

We’ve had a wave of conversations around “be more authentic at work.” Authenticity is the superpower. Be more authentic at work. And people hear that and they agree with it. You see the nods, they’re like, “Yup, yup, that seems like it would be a good idea,” but then, more often than not, I work with clients who tell me, “Yeah, that would be great. How? I don’t know how to be more authentic at work. Can somebody give me the playbook? I don’t understand why I just can’t show up that way. It doesn’t feel quite that simple.”

And so, what I’ve discovered in some of the research is when people feel awkward, or unsure, or embarrassed, or they’re fearing awkwardness at work, what they tend to do instead is something called catering, which is essentially putting on a bit of a performance to meet other people’s expectations, “I have a new boss, they expect me probably to be like this, or show up like that, so I’m behaving in a way that caters to their expectations. I’m performing to meet what I think they expect of me.”

And while first impressions do matter, I don’t want to diminish that, there’s actually now a significant body of research from Francesca Gino and her team at Harvard that says that catering to meet other people’s expectations not only diminishes our performance at work but, frankly, it’s exhausting. We collapse into bed at the end of a night. We don’t do our best work. We don’t save our energy for the things that we genuinely want to do to make an impact at work.

And so, there’s actually a lot of downsides to that catering behavior instead of coming in stumbles, fumbles, and all.

Pete Mockaitis
Can you give us a few examples of typical workplace catering behavior that has the potential to kill our energy and our performance?

Henna Pryor
Sure. I’ll give you, actually, the study that really found this and then I’ll give you just a run-of-the-mill example at work. So, in Francesca Gino’s Harvard research, they actually were studying a team of inventors, kind of entrepreneurs who were pitching their ideas to investors, they were trying to get funding for their ideas.

And what they actually found was those who catered to meet the investors’ expectations, in other words, told them what they thought the investors wanted to hear, were actually three times less likely to get the funding than those who came in, still prepared, but a little bit more authentic, a bit more passionate, a bit more honest, which was inclusive of stumbles, fumbles, and all. That’s one example.

Another example that I see a lot is when we think about awkward conversations, it’s the whole diversity, equity, inclusion, belonging discussion. Most people still struggle to have those conversations in the workplace. They find it very awkward. They’re afraid of saying the wrong thing. They’re afraid of not getting it right. So, instead, a lot of people will cater, “I think this is what my colleague of color wants me to say. I think this is the right thing to say in this meeting.”

And it actually kind of comes across as a performance versus it is actually much more impactful to say, “Hey, I tried to think thoughtfully about this part of the conversation but I don’t know if I’m going to say the right thing right now. There’s a chance I might get it wrong and it might stumble out of my mouth but I’m going to give it an attempt anyway.” That version actually lands better. So, it’s when we perform, it’s when we try to smooth out the bumps of areas where we do feel a bit uncomfortable that it actually has an inverse impact to what we think.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. Understood. Well, so I’d love to hear then, in terms of awkwardness becoming our strength instead of our weakness. How do we begin to think about, reframe, and make that true for us?

Henna Pryor
Sure. So, again, just to put a spotlight on a definition that we’re going to operate from for the context of this conversation, awkwardness is an emotion that we feel when the person we believe ourselves to be, or our true self, is momentarily at odds with the person that they see on display. In other words, the person we are, for a moment in time or maybe several moments, feels different than who they see.

So, I’m jumping on a podcast with you today, Pete, and I butcher your last name, I mispronounce it horribly, and I feel awkward and embarrassed about that for a moment, because the person I believe myself to be, someone who is intentional and prepared when it comes to the pronunciation of names, for that moment, feels at odds with the person who I think you see, someone is not thoughtful about names, someone who is not trying. There’s a gap between those two people.

And so, when we think about our professional lives, every time we’re at an inflection point, a growth point, a transition point, we’re going to invite opportunities for awkwardness, we’re going to invite opportunities for embarrassment. And it’s learning how to get comfortable with those that actually leads us continuing to take the chances that contribute to our growth.

When we can’t lean into them, we tend to avoid them and run away from them, which becomes very problematic when we’re trying to advance our careers and our lives.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. So, with this definition, awkwardness is when there’s a difference between who we believe ourselves to be versus what someone else is perceiving from us in a moment. Now, that’s pretty specific as opposed to generalized discomfort about any number of things, like, I’ll feel awkward when…well, I guess, maybe not your definition of awkward. Like, if I just disagree with somebody, I will experience a sensation of discomfort that I would have previously called awkward, although that’s not exactly in harmony with your definition. Or is it?

Henna Pryor
It is, I think, to a degree. So, maybe let’s peel back the layer one more bit to help unpack that. Awkwardness is also a social emotion, meaning if you read something online by yourself and you didn’t agree with it, you wouldn’t feel awkward about that because no one is there to hear you even if you were to express your disagreement out loud, “That person is an idiot. They don’t know what they’re talking about.” No one is there to hear you so you don’t feel awkward because awkwardness is a social emotion, meaning that others have to exist.

Now, awkwardness also exists as a social emotion when what we think is going to happen isn’t met. So, in our minds, we built some certain expectation of how an interaction is going to go, how a chat is going to go, and our expectation isn’t met. So, in the case of the example that you gave, when you wildly disagree with something that someone said, probably, subconsciously, there was some part of you that expected that conversation to go a bit differently.

So, yeah, there probably are some other uncomfortable feelings and emotions mixed up in that, but part of that may have been a feeling of awkwardness because, suddenly, you are finding yourself feeling a little thrown off balance or a bit unprepared because you didn’t expect the conversation to go that way.

Pete Mockaitis
And it’s also interesting when you experience this, like, I’m just thinking about TV comedies, awkward situations, like The Office. Michael Scott says just some outrageous things and the situation, like you feel uncomfortable watching it but it’s also very engaging, it’s like, “Oh, my gosh. Oh, cringe. What’s going to happen here? And this is hilariously inappropriate, and whoa.” So, there are two, I suppose, I have a different set of expectations as to what would normally unfold in such a scenario.

Henna Pryor
Yeah, I love that you brought that example up because I have a whole section in the book where I talk about this. That’s actually an entire genre of comedy referred to as cringe comedy. So, there’s The Office, 40-Year-Old Virgin, Borat, Curb Your Enthusiasm, America’s Funniest Home Videos. There’s a certain genre of comedy that is called cringe comedy. You watch it almost with that expectation of the things you’re going to watch are going to make you go, “Oh! Ooh! Eeh!”

What’s interesting about this is part of the research that I dove into that was also fascinating is there are some people, you’ve kind of alluded to this already, who can point at cringe comedy and laugh, and go, “Oh, my God, this is so entertaining. This is hilarious.” There are others who cannot deal. They’re underneath the covers, they’re like, “Oh, I feel this fully from head to toe. I feel ‘Diversity Day,’ ‘Scott’s Tots,’ these episodes, like I cannot watch this without having full body embarrassment.”

And so, interestingly, people who that experience on that extreme, actually have something that they feel very strongly called vicarious embarrassment, which is actually a function of empathy. When you’re particularly high on a certain type of empathy, not only do you feel that embarrassment or awkwardness and cringe for someone momentarily, but you actually take it on with them as though it’s your own, and it becomes this full body visceral reaction.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. So, working with this definition of awkwardness now, tell us, how do we make this so that it really is a jet fuel source of strength and power?

Henna Pryor
Yes. So, two-part process here. Number one is just self-awareness around this emotion in particular. So, as we started to say, it is not the same as just regular discomfort. Awkwardness, as a social emotion, is very tied to approval, “What do other people see? Do they like what they see? Do they approve of who they see?”

So, one of the first things we need to do is just peel back our own layers of self-awareness around the messages we receive around awkwardness and approval growing up. Were you someone who grew in a household where it was, “Hey, don’t speak up and stand out. Just kind of blend in”? It’s going to be more likely that you feel awkward as an adult if you’ve never undone those messages.

Are there stories that you’ve told yourself about what previous awkward interactions have meant? So, I like Dan McAdams’ research out of Northwestern. He refers to two types of stories. Let’s say you have an awkward situation at work where you spoke up in a meeting, and it was a total bomb, embarrassing, did not feel good. Do you tell yourself a contamination story, meaning, “Well, that was a nightmare and I’m never going to raise my hand ever again”? It contaminates the future.

Or, do you look for the redemption story, which is, “Okay, that didn’t feel so great, but I tried it. I raised my hand. I don’t normally do that in that meeting. I got some practice in. Hopefully, it’ll go better the next time”? What are the stories we tell ourselves?

Part two is conditioning, and I’m very passionate about this as it relates to this topic in particular. What we’re talking about when we’re talking about building awkward muscle and using it as a strength is building some strength in our social musculature. Social fitness is a type of muscle building, meaning we have to have interactions with other humans in small-stakes moments so that we can use that feeling as fuel instead of something to be fearful of.

And in this modern climate, we live in a world that’s optimized for smoothness. I don’t technically have to talk to another human being outside of my immediate family today if I don’t really want to. I can order my food online. I can order my groceries on Amazon or the Instacart. We don’t have to talk to folks when we used to.

And, nowadays, increasingly in the grocery store line, we’re looking down on our phones, we’re hammering the elevator door button shut to avoid a two-minute ride with someone. We go to the coffee shop we have in headphones. So, the problem is when we don’t have chances to practice our social muscle in small-stakes situations, when it comes to a big-stakes moment, like negotiating for your higher salary, or trying to advocate for yourself for a promotion, we are increasingly out of practice using these social muscles.

So, if we don’t practice in small-stakes moments to increase that awkward tolerance, the big-stakes moments become nearly unbearable. And so, we really need to create opportunities to condition and put in the repetitions when it comes to these social muscles.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. Well, could you share with us a cool story of someone who put in the reps, where they start from, what did they do, and what cool results did they see on the other side?

Henna Pryor
Absolutely. Yeah, I do some executive coaching, and I worked with a private client named Satya. I talk about her a bit in the book. She was painfully shy. Her parents, very gregarious, extroverted, her sister as well. And not only was she sort of naturally introverted and shy, but she had begun a new job during the pandemic, at which point she really didn’t have any ability to meet her peers in person.

And she would see, for a period of time, her peers continue to get promoted ahead of her because they had had the advantage of things like networking, and she didn’t have natural places to do so having worked from home by herself. So, she realized, “Hey, if I want to get ahead, I got to do this thing that I don’t particularly love, I find very awkward, which is networking.”

So, she practiced in the small-stakes moments. So, first things, once the restrictions started to lift, she’s like, “My first at-bat can’t be the networking event with my entire company and 200 people.” She challenged herself to meet up with an old colleague first who she hadn’t seen in a really long time. That was at her growth edge. She went and tapped on the door of a neighbor who she’d kind of known but not really, and struck up a conversation.

She made an admission that every time she rode the subway, she lived in the city, she was going to leave her headphones out and try to just catch eyes and exchange a smile with someone, low-key, little old lady, nothing aggressive, but she slowly started to recondition these muscles that had kind of gone stagnant. And then, slowly but surely, she put herself in slightly bigger rooms.

A friend invited her out to a wine-tasting event. She said, “Normally, I don’t do that stuff, but it was a small group so I tried it.” Slowly but surely built her way up. So, by the time in two months when her company had their big kind of networking extravaganza company offsite, she felt a bit more prepared, and she had some lines on the ready. She had kind of practiced what this was going to look like.

So, in her case, we actually came up with the strategy that she would find one other person, or at least two other people, that were standing kind of by their lonesome, potentially in the same situation, and she had a line that she had practiced in the mirror about a hundred times. It was this, “My sister told me I needed to talk to at least two new people today, and we have a bet for 20 bucks. I really don’t want to pay her 20 bucks. Will you be one of them?”

And she said it immediately diffused the tension, it created this little icebreaker moment, and this colleague, the one, the first one she actually ended up introducing herself to, they ended up collaborating on a project later that year. A huge win for her. A huge visibility. And none of that would’ve happened had she not kind of put in these reps and created these strategies ahead of time.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, that’s cool. Well, so what do you recommend in terms of the different means by which we put in the reps? Like, if this were an exercise program, what are the best exercises that give us great gains and the suggested frequency and dosage of them?

Henna Pryor
Sure. I’ll give you kind of two buckets. First, from the team perspective. So, if you work on a team or if you’re a leader of a team, I would be so happy if you incorporated some specific and intentional exercises into your team meetings as it relates to this. Again, understand this is not something that happens by accident anymore. We don’t have as many bump-into-each-other-at-the-watercooler moments so we have to create intention.

Some of my favorite ways to do this, I’ll encourage leaders to have five minutes at the top of the meeting, have a bad idea brainstorm, meaning you’re encouraging your teams on purpose, “I want you to share only unrealistic ideas. Realistic ideas not allowed.” And if you’re thinking, “Why? Why would I do that?” Well, believe it or not, often the most unrealistic ideas somewhere in there is one that’s kind of, like, “Hey, that actually could be possible.” Second is even if none of them are, just by starting that way, it lowers people’s guard, and the ideas that follow in the rest of the meeting are more innovative, they’re more creative, they’re more generative, and people are more open.

There’s a similar exercise you can do, I call them cracked-egg stories, where you go around and every single person in a meeting, you can do it either one at a time or you can turn to a partner. Everyone shares one cracked-egg moment from the past week or two, a time where something did not work as planned, or it was kind of a misstep, a fumble, it was embarrassing, it was awkward, it didn’t go the way we hoped, and what did you learn from it.

But, again, by putting these into the room, intentionally creating the space for them to be put into the room, we create a more normalization of this behavior and this emotion that everyone experiences. The thing that’s wild about awkwardness and embarrassment is when you’re experiencing it and feeling it, you feel like it’s just you, “It feels like nobody else is dealing with this emotion the way that I am.” The truth of the matter is everyone is. And so, normalizing it in meetings on purpose is a huge helpful step to creating the types of environments that can take more chances and take more risks in the future.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. So, that’s the team perspective. And then individually?

Henna Pryor
Individually, again, it sounds simple but I would love to see this actually done. I would like to challenge you, listener of this show, today, next time you’re in the supermarket checkout line, leave your phone in your pocket, leave your phone in your bag. Next time you go to the coffee shop or ride the train or ride the plane, just for a few minutes, leave your headphones out.

The goal is to put yourself in minor social situations where certainty is not guaranteed. I call them strategic micro risks. If you reach out to someone in the coffee shop that’s standing in front of you in line, and say, “Hey, I love your sneakers.” Okay, chance that they could look at you like you’re a moron, chance that they continue to strike up the conversation and you meet someone fascinating and interesting.

I was sitting next to a woman at the train station the other day, a much older woman, and just kind of struck up conversation instead of sitting on my phone. I found out that she went to the same college I did, University of Delaware, but 30 years before me. She kind of knew who my father-in law was, which was wild, but these are just life moments where there are no stakes, this was not a professional conversation, but by practicing in those moments where certainty is not guaranteed, what I need you all to understand is you are creating the needed muscle to have other conversations in your professional life where certainty is not guaranteed.

So, it’s about getting comfortable with that uncertainty. If you really want to fast-track this, take an improv class. Take an improv class. If you really want to fast-track your uncertainty tolerance, improv is the fastest way that you can do it because the entire thing is built on this premise of, “I don’t know what’s going to happen next but I’m just going to stay with it. I’m just going to lean in. I’m just going to stick with it. Instead of avoiding it or deflecting it, I’m going to stay with it.” That is the fastest way you can fast-track your awkward tolerance.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay, that’s fun. Any other recommended exercises?

Henna Pryor
Oh, gosh, so many. I’ve got, like, a dozen improv exercises I take people to. I also recommend to people to strategically use humor. I think some people are, like, “Well, I’m not funny. I’m not a ha-ha.” Strategically using humor in awkward situations is something that benefits everyone. And when I say strategically, it’s typically just rooted in truth.

So, I said at the top, the avoidance of awkwardness increases awkwardness. Sometimes all it takes is that one person to gently name, like, “Okay, I’ll be the first to break that awkward silence. Ooh, that was cringe. Nobody expected that.” But it just takes the one person to bring a little bit of that lightness back into the room for folks to move on.

Humor has to just be used strategically because I think, generally, what we want to do is make sure that we are not punching down. So, if you’re a leader, we don’t want to shame anyone. Like, if a junior person that’s trying to raise their hand and maybe they’ll get it wrong, there’s a silence. A leader should not say, “Hey, that was pretty awkward, buddy.” That’s not necessarily helpful, but there is a general rule of thumb not to kick down but you can punch up.

So, if the leader says something, we can all smile and go, “Oh, awkward,” but in a gentle playful way. So, there are some rules, and, again, we go into it in detail but also just learning how to find your own talk tracks. I think talk tracks are really helpful and important. When something doesn’t feel good, having language that resonates with you that you can use right away.

So, there’s an early example in the book where one of my very first meetings after we started reconvening in person, I met with a sales leader. I was trying to win a very big project, a large-scale project. Hadn’t met folks in person in a while, pandemic had restrictions had just lifted. So, 15 minutes I’m going on and on, I’m pitching, and I’m thinking, “Henna, I’m crushing it.” I did sales for 14 years, I’m like, “I’m crushing it.”

And he puts his hand in front of my face, and I’m like, “Sweet!” so I give him a high five. I’m like, “I’m nailing it. Henna, nailing it.” And then he says, this is the next thing out of his mouth, “Henna, I was putting my hand out because I was trying to tell you to stop.” And I’m like, “Oh, my God, she’s forgotten how to people.” I’m mortified but, luckily, having been in this research and knowing this work, the next line immediately out of my mouth was exactly that, which is, “Wow, okay, I’m mortified, but that was pretty awkward. Hopefully, I can still have a chance to keep going with you.”

And just by owning it, he laughed, I laughed, our shoulders relaxed, and we were able to move on. Had I let the awkwardness overtake me and have a grip on me, I would’ve gotten totally off the rails. The whole conversation would’ve left on a very different note. And so, ironically, it’s not about eliminating it or avoiding it, because, again, that’s trying to eliminate or avoid uncertainty. It’s not going to happen. It’s learning how to lean into it, to own it, to embrace it, and use it as a force for good. You tried something. Relate to folks. Create some connections. Lean into those uncertain moments, and move on.

Pete Mockaitis
That’s really cool. And this reminds me a little bit of like rejection therapy when you ask for things that you’ll probably not get, like, “Hey, can I have a discount on…?” whatever, etc. And so, what’s fun about this is it’s easier, the rejection therapy, because your odds are better that you’re not going to hear a no per se, and it’s broader in that you can have conversations about a much bigger range of things than simply requests, like, “Would you please do this for me?” “No.” “Would you please do this for me?” “No.”

As well as having more of an extended exchange as opposed to just a simple no. It’s like, “Okay, I guess that’s even a conversation.” Any thoughts about the parallels there with regards to therapy?

Henna Pryor
Yeah, I think you’re right. It’s a lower-stakes form of exposure therapy or rejection therapy. I think the goal is to recognize that we are increasingly sensitive to social interactions gone awry because we’re out of practice. So, in the case of this gentleman who I high-fived with, and he clearly wasn’t looking for a high five, what was occurring, and the research now actually corroborates this, is that because we’re in isolation in the pandemic, we started to lose our ability to read other people’s social cues.

And this is something that we know is true because there’s been studies done on people whose jobs are more isolated by nature. For example, astronauts or polar explorers, people whose jobs are isolated. They found that when they returned to social settings, those social skills atrophied, meaning they had difficulty properly reading someone’s body language, their gestures, their cues.

The same thing can happen to us. And this is where I’m also very careful to point out that awkwardness is not something limited to introverts. I am 100% an extrovert through and through. I don’t think there’s an introverted bone in my body, but after the pandemic, we all realized that we could get this kind of off balance, “Okay, my social skills aren’t quite what they used to be.”

And, again, in this moment in time where we can order our food online, my 13-year-old and I joked, she doesn’t ring her friends’ doorbells. She’s like, “Mom, just text, ‘Here.’ Text them we’re in the driveway. Text them ‘Here.’” And I’m like, “Ugh, text them ‘Here’?” I used to have to talk to my friends’ parents on the phone for 10 minutes before they got on the line.

But we don’t have these same opportunities for unexpected happenstance social interactions, so we actually have to be more intentional about carving them out to create that desensitization or that exposure therapy. We actually have to go seek it out a bit more.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. And I’m thinking if you have had an awkward, embarrassing, cringey moment in the past, maybe the distant past, or the recent past, that continues to pop up and spook us, it haunts us in the here and now, any tips for how do we deal with that?

Henna Pryor
Sure. This is common. I think we can call it by a variety of names. It’s rumination. It’s lingering. Some situation had such a grip on us that it seems to keep rearing its head. I would offer two thoughts here. First, it’s okay if you think about it. I’m not concerned about you thinking about it. Humans are wired for social acceptance. If those thoughts come up every now and then, I don’t mind. The difference is do those thoughts keep you in a cycle of inaction the next time? Does that thought have such a grip strength on you that you don’t take the chance or say the thing the next time?

So, part of what I coach my own clients through is just to slow down the thinking. What are people actually thinking? Often, when we are replaying a situation in our mind, we’re making the assumption that they think we’re a moron, they think we’re inept, they think we’re unqualified, so there’s a few things I remind them of.

First of all, remind yourself of the spotlight effect. The spotlight effect is a phenomenon coined by Tom Gilovich out of Cornell that is essentially pointing the idea that people are not paying nearly as close attention to you as you think they are. They’re more concerned with themselves. They’ve already turned the spotlight back onto themselves. They’ve forgotten about you long ago.

The second thing that I love to remind people of is there’s a phenomenon called the Pratfall Effect, which is if you are generally someone who is smart, competent, capable, skillful, if you are generally someone who is seen that way, and you commit a blunder, or a misstep, or you say the wrong thing, not only will people not hold it against you for the rest of your life like you think, it actually makes you more likable.

There’s a body of research that says when you are generally seen as smart, capable, and have a decent level of aptitude, a blunder makes you human. It knocks you off the pedestal that other people put you on, and it actually makes you more warm and likable so there’s actually an upside to these things. If you are working hard, and if you’re someone who generally is prepared, and these things happen, give yourself some grace. People are not tearing you apart the way that you’re tearing yourself apart.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. And you’ve got a fun turn-of-a-phrase I want to hear about – protagonist disease. What is it? And why should we watch out for it?

Henna Pryor
Yeah, it’s similar to the spotlight effect in that, often, when we are concerned about approval and when we are chasing a version of ourselves that we want other people to see, I think the millennial Gen Z population these days refer to it as having main character energy. We think that we’re the star of the show, everyone is paying attention to what we’re doing, to what we’re saying, to how we’re saying it.

In the social media era, this feels even more pronounced. Everyone is dissecting everything. But here’s the truth. Everyone is a protagonist in their own story, but as far as you’re concerned, you’re an extra in their story. You are not the center of their world. And often, when we are so consumed with, “What will other people think about this awkward moment, this misstep, this embarrassing thing?” we become so consumed with this idea that we are the protagonist of everyone’s story.

The truth is we’re not. They are the protagonist of their own story. We are merely an extra. And if we can remind ourselves of that regularly, it helps release some of that grip strength of everyone is watching because they rarely are.

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

Henna Pryor
Last thing I’ll just say on this is when I titled the book Good Awkward, people were like, “Oh, she wrote a book about me.” I can’t tell you how many people have responded with that phrase, “She wrote a book about me.” And what’s funny is that everyone says that, and the research actually proves that awkwardness is for everyone.

The most confident person you know, the person that you look to, and you’re like, “Gosh, they are smooth, flawless, they’ve never had a blunder, they’ve never had a misstep,” guess what, yes, they do. They experience this emotion just as much as you do. They’ve just learned how to lean in, and they’ve learned how to accelerate their comeback rate but they are not exempt from this.

It is for everyone, you included, your favorite celebrity included, and so just knowing that, hopefully, it helps everybody relax a little bit.

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

Henna Pryor
Favorite quote, this is probably silly and funny but it’s one that I say all the time, “Don’t sweat the petty things and don’t pet the sweaty things.”

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

Henna Pryor
The vicarious embarrassment one that I shared earlier, to me, is really fun. I think the one I mentioned, cringe comedy, but the other one that I thought was really exciting was this idea of embarrassment for versus embarrassment with. So, let’s just say, Pete, you walk up the steps to the stage, and you’ve got toilet paper out of the back of your pants, you don’t know it’s there, and so only I feel embarrassed. You don’t even feel it.

And if you knew it was there, then what I’m doing is empathy. But if you don’t know that it’s there, then what I’m doing is judgment. And I think that it’s a really interesting exploration of how our own tendencies to judge actually impacts our own ability to take risks. So, I think all the research around that shared empathy and vicarious embarrassment is my favorite stuff to talk about.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. And a favorite book?

Henna Pryor
Probably The Gifts of Imperfection by Brene Brown on nonfiction. And on fiction, Americanah by Chimamanda Adichie.

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

Henna Pryor
I think that technology can be a gift when used appropriately. I think technology is that namaste from social interaction is tough but, I hate to be cliché in this moment in time, I think that ChatGPT and generative AI is the coolest brainstorming partner for any creative work. So, I’m going to go AI, when used correctly, as a brainstorming partner.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. And a favorite habit?

Henna Pryor
Can I cheat and say my favorite habit is habit stacking? I’m not someone who necessarily would just choose one habit, but I find I’m effective at picking up habits when I stack them. So, for example, as I’m washing the dishes, I start a cup of tea because I want to be someone who drinks tea at night. So, it becomes a routine that, as I’m doing the dishes after dinner, I start my water for tea. So, anytime I have it stacked, I like those habits the best because I’m more likely to do them.

Pete Mockaitis
Can you tell me more about the phrase “I want to be someone who drinks tea at night”?

Henna Pryor
I want to be someone who chooses healthy habits that serve me and keep me sharp.

Pete Mockaitis
So, as opposed to boozing?

Henna Pryor
Right, as opposed to boozing or even as opposed to, like, a bowl of ice cream, which is what I want sometimes, but I tend to find that the ritual of tea is very calming for me. And I’m someone who runs hard and talks fast as you’ve noticed in the last half hour. So, this is like a recentering moment for me, is the cup of tea at night.

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

Henna Pryor
The one that’s coming up all the time lately is “Do it awkward but do it anyway.”

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

Henna Pryor
LinkedIn is my preferred playground, so there if possible. I’m also on Instagram, hennapryor, and all the places. And information about the book is at GoodAwkward.com.

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

Henna Pryor
I do. I do. If you want to be awesome at your job, and you are not a polar explorer or astronaut, meaning you don’t work completely by yourself, if you work with other people, I want you to challenge yourself this week to do something that strengthens your social muscle. If that’s striking up a conversation in the grocery store line, if that is ringing the doorbell instead of texting “Here,” find one opportunity to put yourself in a social situation that you, otherwise, might have had an inclination to avoid, and just see how it feels, see how it serves you, and message me on LinkedIn. Let me know how it goes.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. Henna, thank you. This has been a treat. I wish you much luck and fun in your awkward moments.

Henna Pryor
Thank you for having me.

911: Making Uncertainty your Friend with Maggie Jackson

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Maggie Jackson talks about the power of uncertainty and how to harness it.

You’ll Learn:

  1. How uncertainty enhances learning
  2. How to manage the fear of uncertainty
  3. How routine can hold us back

About Maggie

Maggie Jackson is an award-winning author and journalist. Her new book, Uncertain: The Wisdom and Wonder of Being Unsure (Nov. 2023) explores why we should paradoxically seek not-knowing in times of flux. The book’s been nominated for a National Book Award, Uncertain is a Next Big Idea Club “must read.” Jackson’s prior book, Distracted (2nd ed., 2018), sparked a global conversation on the steep costs of fragmenting our attention and won the 2020 Dorothy Lee Award. A former Boston Globe columnist, Jackson has written for the New York Times and other publications worldwide. Her work has been covered extensively in the global press.

Resources Mentioned

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Maggie Jackson Interview Transcript

Pete Mockaitis
Maggie, welcome to How to be Awesome at Your Job.

Maggie Jackson
Oh, wonderful to be with you, Pete.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, I’m excited to hear about your wisdom you’ve put forth in your book, Uncertain: The Wisdom and Wonder of Being Unsure. But first, I need to hear about you swimming in the Atlantic Ocean almost every day. What’s the story here?

Maggie Jackson
Well, it’s a pandemic story. I used to be a pool swimmer, and I’ve increasingly loved swimming the older I’ve gotten. And then I moved out to the countryside in Rhode Island from New York City during the pandemic, and got kind of really into swimming all the time in the ocean, increasingly in the fall, and then all winter, and spring. I absolutely love it. Being there at dawn, it’s beautiful and feels a whole exercise you can’t beat.

But then it’s sort of interesting because it also offers a great deal, kind of a daily dose of uncertainty. So, I finally began to realize that part of the joy and the daunting nature of what I’m doing is that swimming is never the same twice. When you’re open water, four seasons swimming, it’s never the same twice. So, it’s a great little lesson in uncertainty.

Pete Mockaitis
That’s cool. That’s cool. And I have recently been getting into cold water immersion. Fun things. And I’m thinking, wow, fall and winter, you’re getting that in spades. You know what the temperature in the water is like during these times?

Maggie Jackson
Oh, yes. Yes, we all keep track of the temperature quite carefully because I do wear some gear, so I adjust my gear. But the temperature is about the low is 36 Fahrenheit.

Pete Mockaitis
All right.

Maggie Jackson
And a lot depends on it could be 20 Fahrenheit in air, and it can be the wind, and then you can be in the snow. It’s all really beautiful and it’s just so much fun. And they’re now doing studies, trying to augment people’s kind of understanding or capability with uncertainty in order to boost resilience. So, we could talk about that. But that, I feel as though, I’ve gained resilience by doing this.

Pete Mockaitis
And so, is it your experience, as it is mine, that just the sheer cold alone is invigorating and mood-boosting over the long term?

Maggie Jackson
Exactly. I find that the colder it is, the more joyful it is. The deep dark winter when my little band of swimmers is going at it, we’re actually laughing out loud and sort of hooting and hollering, and I find that the summer is beautiful, it’s relaxing, it’s wonderful, but it’s not quite as exhilarating. So, it completely represents what we might call good stress.

Pete Mockaitis
Lovely. Well, now let’s hear a little bit about uncertainty in your book Uncertain: The Wisdom and Wonder of Being Unsure. Have you encountered any particularly surprising, or extra-fascinating, or counterintuitive discoveries about us humans and uncertainty while putting this together?

Maggie Jackson
Sure. A long list of surprising discoveries related to uncertainty. We mostly think of uncertainty as being, what psychologists call aversive. We don’t like it. Humans don’t like it. And there’s a reason for that. We’re naturally made to survive by getting answers. Like, we can’t exist in the state of not knowing. However, it’s really interesting because when humans encounter something new, it might be your first day at the job, it might be a six-month roadblock on your highway and you got to adjust, you actually undergo all of these kinds of stress changes in your body.

You might sweat a little, your heart might race, but at the same time, there are changes in the brain that are extremely beneficial when you are in this uncertain, this unsettling state of uncertainty. Actually, your working memory is bolstered, your focus broadens, the brain is more receptive to new information, so you’re basically on your toes. So, what seems unsettling and sort of this uncertainty that we dislike is actually priming us to be able to learn.

So, as one neuroscientist told me, “When you’re in that moment of so-called arousal due to uncertainty, the brain is telling itself there’s something to be learned here.” And so, I think it’s really important on the job, or on the restive life, not to squander that moment. Move forward into uncertainty. Don’t run from it or deny it or hide it. I think it’s really important that we don’t cut short that opportunity to learn that uncertainty offers.

Pete Mockaitis
So, we are more able to learn with these sorts of emotional stress response things going on, and that just sort of fits. It makes sense because, well, yes, there’s something that needs learning here because, by definition, it’s uncertain what’s going on.

Maggie Jackson
Yup, you walk into the meeting and there’s a surprise, or your boss hands you a project you didn’t really think you’re going to have to do. And it’s not emotion, really. It’s cognition. So, your brain is actually going on alert. It’s being aroused, as scientists say. And that puts you in a state where you can take advantage of that.

And so, I think the myth-busting one we have to do first about uncertainty is to realize that uncertainty is unsettling, yes, but that is its precise gift. It bumps us off the routine. It’s telling us. When you’re uncertain, that’s basically your brain telling you that you have to stop your automatic behavior. The status quo doesn’t work anymore. You’ve got to be ready to update your understanding of the world.

Pete Mockaitis
And what’s interesting is you say that we tend to not like uncertainty, and yet there are some contexts where we, humans, proactively go for it. We want to play card games, or videogames, or go to the casino, and that’s the whole draw of these things, is we don’t quite know how things are going to turn out. There’s an element of chance.

Maggie Jackson
Oh, I think that’s a very, very good point. It’s sort of uncertainty by another name. We might call it suspense, or just the kind of not knowing that’s playful or entertainment form that, I think, as uncertainty has grown, or I would say unpredictability in the world has grown, and, really, studies do show that economics, business world, climate, etc., there are a lot of aspects of the life that are more volatile. Uncertainty has become kind of a lament. You see it in the headlines. You hear people talk about it.

People just equate uncertainty with something bad. And that’s not moving us forward. That’s actually keeping us. Uncertainty is not the paralysis that we think. The human uncertainty, the unsureness, the not knowing, it’s not that all, as research shows. It’s actually something that’s highly dynamic and active, and something that moves us forward. Uncertainty is a lot more than we know.

And, actually, for decades and decades, this state of mind, it’s a mindset, basically, wasn’t studied. It wasn’t studied even in psychology because the onus and the emphasis was on what the human can do, what’s the task that you accomplish. It’s not sort of in between time when people are pausing and unsure, or they don’t know what to do. The scientists wanted to study what they could get accomplished.

And so, I think this puts human thinking, and even what it means to know what it means to be successful, it puts it in a whole new plane because if we can add not knowing to our skillset, as well as knowing, well, we’re suddenly really opening up to the world in ways that we weren’t.

Pete Mockaitis
Intriguing. So, not knowing as a skillset that benefits us. Could you perhaps give us a story, an example, of someone who upgraded that skill and saw cool results as a result?

Maggie Jackson
Yeah, I’ll give you a couple of stories, but one little story came from a friend of mine who was calling me up, and saying, “Oh, there’s a merger and acquisition at my pharmaceutical company,” and she’s a scientist, and she was moaning and groaning. And in the next breath, she was talking about how she’s brushing up her resume, and she’s looking around for an internal job.

And I was sort of amused inside, having been steeped in uncertainty research, so I realized that she was actually doing precisely what, through her uncertainty, she was actually taking hold of the situation, and she was propelled to investigate further. And you can see this in many, many great figures. Martin Luther King’s “I have a dream” speech was basically borne of uncertainty. He was a leader who was very humble. He wasn’t opposed to saying, “I don’t know,” and he really led the movement through conviction but also with adaptability.

And when it came to that incredibly important speech that day in 1963, The March on Washington, first of all, he had asked for opinions from many, many advisers. The night of the speech, he didn’t know quite what he would say. He had elements but he didn’t really know. He was actually still working on the speech right up on the podium that day.

And what that shows is that he was in tuned with a very divisive, very difficult moment in history. He was wakeful to all the different influences and patterns and sort of things that were going on in that moment, and he, of course, pulled off one of the greatest speeches of all time.

Pete Mockaitis
Beautiful. Let’s have another example.

Maggie Jackson
Well, I would say a more modern example is I’ve been studying the work style of the new Nobel Prize winner in medicine, the co-winner, Kati Kariko, who was originally from Hungary, and she worked for decades on mRNA, which, of course, was the sort of her work on mRNA led to the breakthrough that gave us the COVID vaccines and saved hundreds of millions of lives perhaps.

And she was incredibly dogged and incredibly persistent, and she saw the capacity of this aspect of biology when no one else was. She was terminated from UPenn, but this is not just a story of persistence. As she puts it in one Nobel Prize interview, one of her coworkers said, “Oh, Kati, you’re always zigzagging.” In other words, she didn’t always work in a straight line. And she said, “By zigzagging, I learned so much.”

And this is what it means to inhabit uncertainty. You’re not shutting down on that space of possibility that uncertainty is. And one of the most interesting things about curiosity is that scientists have been finally studying this topic, too, and they’re beginning to kind of understand that one of the most key components of curiosity, of the curious disposition, is the ability to work with or tolerate the stress of inhabiting the unknown.

So, when you’re curious about something, anything, painting or what you’re curious about, something you’re doing at work, or curious about what this Nobel Prize winner did, you are actually having to kind of understand, or withstand, or kind of leverage that uncertainty in order to get to the answer. And that she really represents that. She really does. She spent so much energy on doing things that were denigrated, devalued in every sense of the word. She kept going and she basically exemplifies the willingness to stay in that liminal space, which is to not know, to not know in order to get the better answer.

If she had raced to the first answer, well, she might’ve discovered something but she never would’ve put the pieces together. She had to go down a lot of dead ends, and that, to me, is that entirely what uncertainty is about, productive uncertainty.

Pete Mockaitis
And could you elaborate on the distinction between working in a zigzag fashion versus linear fashion? What are those different modes look, sound, feel like by contrast?

Maggie Jackson
Well, I would say that the linear fashion         of working would be to work from one logical point to another, to be focused on outcome. Outcome orientation is a really hot topic in business circles today. Whereas, a zigzag, a nonlinear, that is something that Leonardo da Vinci was famous for. “Confusion rouses the mind to invention,” he once said.

And the zigzagging that she was referring to would be the dead ends. Many times, mRNA was actually toxic to the body when introduced in mice, etc. It didn’t do them any good. And so, basically, she could’ve quit there but instead she zagged, or zigged, over to a different type of thing. So, that’s what I mean.

Eighty percent of strategic business decisions are made after considering just one option. And, yet, if people actually go to the root of the problem and consider multiple reasons for the problem, multiple roots of the problem, then they’re actually four times more likely to have a successful decision.

So, again and again, we hear that we should widen our options but the other point of that is what I call widening and deepening, and that is testing and evaluating. So, again, that’s where you’re leveraging uncertainty. This is leveraging what Kahneman calls the slow mind. It’s what I also call take two. Rather than just leap to a solution, or go to what’s obvious, or try to shoot for that outcome, you’re willing to explore many avenues, and not forever.

Sometimes this can happen just in a few minutes in the operating room with a surgeon in crisis. They just take a minute to do take two, or to dwell in uncertainty, and then they find the better answer, or the hidden answer. And so, that’s what I mean by zigzag.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. Thank you. And so, if folks do have this attitude or fear of uncertainty, do you have any recommended first steps in terms of, “Hey, if that’s where you’re at right now, here’s what I recommend you do or think about”?

Maggie Jackson
Yes, that’s a great question. And it’s really important, and I get asked that all the time now, “How can I get better at dealing with uncertainty?” And, actually, I’ll talk a little bit about what I found, but also there’s some new research on this, a great deal of research. There are scientists now planning a new study, an intervention, in Columbus, Ohio, to help stressed high schoolers gain resilience by teaching them how to better tolerate, which is not such a great word, but to manage uncertainty, to actually, it means lean into uncertainty. That’s the term I prefer.

And how are they doing that? Well, scientists, clinical psychologists, and others were developing these interventions, are now, they’re basically importing some lessons from exposure to therapy, so that makes sense. If you are fearful of uncertainty, if you’re the type who’s intolerant of surprises, you need to overprepare for the presentation, you need to pack not just your bag for the family vacation but the entire family’s bag because you don’t trust them to do it, those are kind of signs that you might be a little bit intolerant of uncertainty.

And so, trying new things, trying to, in effect, seek a little bit of surprise in your life, will show you not that it’s always the perfect solution. You might delegate at work, and it might not actually work out better every single time. But, at the same time, if you never delegate at work, you will never know the other possibilities that that person, that the hidden talents of that person shows. The person who works for you might show hidden talents when you allow them to work on that project a little more than before.

So, what you’re doing is expanding your perspectives, expanding your range of experience, and one of the ways in which clinical psychologists are now teaching people, especially people with anxiety, to get better at handling uncertainty, to stop denying and avoiding it, are tiny little things like, for instance, “Answer your cellphone without caller ID.” And that seems so simple but, at the same time, it’s just injecting a little bit of mystery.

And some scientists actually surmised that phones, because they provide instant answers all the time, and we’re checking 150 times a day, that’s what they call certainty-seeking behavior. So, some part of this is just sort of lifting up your head and kind of contending with what’s happening, not trying to control every little bit.

Pete Mockaitis
That’s fun. This reminds me of a recent camping trip in which we were…I don’t even remember what we’re talking about but it was some sort of factual question that could be readily Googled, and we weren’t sure, it’s like, “Oh, I think it’s this way.” “Well, no, I think it might be this because what about that?” And it was funny, we’re like, “Huh, here we are all not being quite sure about this thing,” which, on ordinary circumstances, when we had cellphone reception, someone would’ve Googled it within about five seconds, and then that would be that.

Maggie Jackson
Right. And, actually, what you were doing, by collectively or individually kind of cogitating, you were reaching into your memory, which is not something we do when we’re turned to the phone all the time. You’re actually reaching deep into your memory. And even if you don’t come up with the answer, it strengthens your brain to do so.

It’s really quite amazing but just searching around in your memory, something that we just don’t do today, is actually great for the brain. And why is that? Because, say, you’re trying to think of a painter. I’m trying madly to think of Degas, and all I can think of is Monet. And, really, if you’re looking around in your brain, internally searching, in other words, you’re looking through different knowledge networks because our minds and our experiences, they’re varied associations. They’re networked. They say they’re branching trees of knowledge.

And what you’re doing is going along those paths, and you’re saying, “Oh, well, maybe an impressionist, or I guess French,” so you’re strengthening by utilizing those synapses, you’re strengthening other areas of the brain, and that’s really great for greater wisdom. Our minds are not computers, information is not downloadable and upload-able. It’s really sort of an organic shifting thing. And that’s another reason why not knowing is really important because it kind of blows away that idea that our minds are computers.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. Well, these are fun practices. Tell me, Maggie, anymore?

Maggie Jackson
Yes. Well, I would say one very, very important practice is it involves teamwork. So, uncertainty has a social side to it. And the upshot is that, basically, one of the best fuels of collaboration is conflict, and I mean judicious, mild, respectful conflict. But study after study shows that teams and groups that have mutual criticism, conflict, dissent are better performing. They actually have deeper discussions, they’re more creative, they surface hidden information that isn’t usually discussed, etc. Now, why is that?

Well, a lot of people think that, basically, when you have a disagreement or even when you just have diversity on a team, diversity of opinions, that diverse or dissenting opinion is just giving you the right answer, but that’s not true because a dissenting opinion, even if wrong, also bolsters performance. Why is it? It’s because uncertainty has rousted you from that kind of complacency of being in agreement. And the neuroscience on that is pretty amazing. The brain in agreement is a really lazy animal, believe me.

So, basically, if you can keep cultivating disagreement, then you get on what I call uncommon ground. It’s really important to be uncertain, and then you can do a whole host of things. You’re basically finding out what the team doesn’t know, which is really important for growth. You basically deepen and intensify the discussion. Now, studies have shown this in supreme courts, in the Supreme Courts, in juries, in financial trading, even on Mount Everest.

They did studies where teams that were very diverse, had a lot of different kinds of knowledge on climbing Mount Everest, but who emphasized all for one kind of mentality, so a kind of collective mentality, actually were more likely to have a depth on the team, and that’s really serious business. So, one flexible work consultant told me a wonderful story to illustrate this.

Cali Williams Yost was at a law firm where she was helping the firm institute flexible work for the legal team. I’m sorry, it was the legal team of an energy company. So, the legal team was all set to go, the bosses were on board, they were going to work remotely part time, etc. Well, one executive stood up and said he was completely opposed, at a meeting, and there was going to be a lot of knowledge left on the table because people weren’t meeting in the morning to coffee clap, etc.

Well, the bosses were angry, and everyone was shocked, they were all set. And what Cali Williams Yost wisely told me is that, basically, he was wrong to oppose flexible work but he was right, something was missing. And so, his dissent actually sparked a younger person in the room to, later in the afternoon, stand up, and say, “Well, I can create a virtual knowledge platform, and we can go remote and still have that time to coffee clap, so to speak.” So, that’s a perfect example of how dissent threw everyone into uncertainty, and then they were able to actually kind of find a third way to meet the problem.

Pete Mockaitis
It’s funny how, as I imagine that scene, the emotional reaction is just as you’ve described, it’s like folks are annoyed, like, “Oh, come on, man. Just, like, shut up and get in line. We’re almost done. Why you gotta be difficult and cause problems, and not be a team player?” Like, all of these negative associations. And yet, it really is an asset to have folks who have unique perspective and the courage to share it and go against the grain, it really does enrich the whole team, and yet so rarely do we say, “Thank you, dear colleague, for disagreeing with all of us. This is very helpful.”

Maggie Jackson
Oh, you’re so right. And you put it so well, and I’m so glad you used that word courage because I was just thinking of a quote by William James, a great psychology philosopher in the 19th century, who talked about the courage of a maybe. He basically talked about how no human achievement can be created without the “courage of a maybe.” And that’s exactly what’s happening.

I think one tip for people who want to try this, and I would advise, throw in a no, a gentle no, or maybe just a maybe. And what you’re doing with the word maybe is actually using something called hedge words. And so, those are really, really important. Hedge words are maybe, sometimes, those sorts of words, as opposed to more…there’s no alternative word for hedge words, but anyhow, non-hedge words, which are, “You’re wrong,” or, “Therefore.” Those are not hedge words.

And what hedge words do is signal your receptiveness to another opinion. They also signal that there’s something that’s not known. So, if you say, “Maybe we should consider something,” or, “Maybe we haven’t thought of…” etc., you’re actually smoothing the way for others to pick up on that. And it’s a wonderful kind of linguistic flag that you’re waving, saying, “Hey, maybe we shouldn’t be so sure,” and that’s where then the disagreement can be fueled, and the uncertainty. And then people can be in the space of uncommon ground, and then go deeper and explore multiple perspectives.

Another study I really loved, which brings this all to life, was basically a CEO who’s in Europe, a few years ago when the European Union was being widely expanded, so quite a bit of Eastern Europe was being inducted into the EU. And so, it was a time of great unknowns for business leaders on that continent. And so, two professors, one in Germany, one in the US, went and studied German CEOs for an entire year, and they asked them whether they’re for this expansion or were they against it, and what would happen, was it good for their company or was it bad for their company.

Well, when they got the results back, they found this third group. To their surprise, 25% or more of the CEOs were ambivalent, they didn’t really know, “Well, we’re not really sure this is going to expand the markets. Is it going to take our customers away? We’re not sure.” And it’s amazing to me that the professors were surprised.

Well, a year later, fast forward, the result was the people who were sure that it would be either good for their company or bad for their company, basically didn’t do very much. Those who were ambivalent were more resourceful, they came up with more products, they opened new factories, they actually were more inclusive, they asked for different opinions. They weren’t sure so that propelled them to do more.

And I think there was an award-winning study, and it just perfectly underscores not just what we’re talking about, about dissent, but also about the power of uncertainty. And it certainly is an overlooked unsung power.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, I like that a lot. They’re not sure and, thusly, they do more. They’re not sure, so it was like, “Uh-oh, I don’t know so I better hustle. I better figure it out and do the research, do the work, do the investigation, talk to people, and get the info.” And this reminds me of, I don’t know if this has been coined somewhere before, but I might’ve made this up. I call it second time syndrome.

Like, the second time you do something, you might get worse results than the first time because you’re more confident, like, “Oh, I know how this goes,” versus the first time, you’re like, “Oh, boy, I’m a little scared, a little intimidated, a little overwhelmed. I better really hustle and figure this out.” Like, I remember, I was, at one point, a leadership seminar chair, or HOBY daddy for these HOBY, Hugh O’Brian Youth Leadership event, so there’s a bunch of folks assembled for a three-day thing, and I’m kind of like the guy in charge of everything.

And so, the first time, I was like, “Wow, this is intimidating. I really want to make sure I’m on top of everything,” and it went very well. And the second time, I thought, “Oh, we got this. It’s fine.” And it was still good but it was not as excellent as the first one. I could see this event now years later. And it’s because I was more certain and more comfortable and less effortful the second time around.

Maggie Jackson
I think that’s so true and that’s such a good point. Because uncertainty, and confronting something new, is actually putting you at the edge of your knowledge, and that’s exactly when we want to retreat. There’s a term called the routine expert. The routine expert is someone, we’ve seen it everywhere. We see it in medicine. We see it in accounting. We see it in reporting. I’m a journalist. But people who have accrued years of experience, they’re really good at what they do, but everything has become routine. They have this sort of honed automaticity, so the heuristic thinking, “Chest pain equals heart attack” that is predominant.

But when the routine expert hits something that’s really new, they just retreat into the same old solutions, and they’re then not doing well. They fail. Whereas, adaptive experts are the people who can utilize that uncertainty, to do the kind of deliberative work, and also to be flexible about using their knowledge. And so, adaptive experts are nimble. And that’s exactly what we want.

When something goes wrong in the operating room, I witnessed multiple operations up in Toronto while researching this book, and one of the senior surgeons who epitomizes our ideal of the expert, he was quick, he was sure, really sure, well, he then, in a moment, in a terrifying moment in the operating room, he thought he had done something nearly lethal to the patient during a liver operation. Everything fell silent, there was sweat on his cap.

Well, he was just too sure. He carried his certainty into that operation like a badge of honor. And then he was able to, “It was not a lethal error,” but, at the same time, he epitomizes what we loved in experts. And we really are venerating the wrong type of experts. What we want to really emulate and respect the people who ask the questions, the people who say, “I don’t know,” whether it’s medicine or not, and the leaders who are willing to pause and deliberate.

And other study shows that those leaders, who when confronting a new problem, actually, are deemed in experimental studies anyhow as being less influential. But we’ve got it all wrong. We’ve got it all wrong. We need to be really promoting people who ask questions, who don’t mind hesitating for productive uses, who don’t mind being unsure.

Pete Mockaitis
Yeah, that’s beautiful. Indeed, we tend to favor, like, trust the confident-sounding voice but there are studies that reveal that there is almost no correlation between the confidence someone exerts and how right or good they are at the thing, so that’s dangerous and some ways it’s like we’d be better off if we trusted or valued more the nuanced person, it’s like, “Well, you know, under these circumstances, it’s probably best for A, but, however, given the variables X, Y, Z, I’m leaning towards B.”

Like, that doesn’t sound as commanding and inspiring, like, “Yes, you know what you’re doing. I’ll follow you unto death” That doesn’t give you the that emotional charge. And yet, it’s likely much closer to true, and there’s much higher probability, it seems, of finding great wisdom there worth following.

Maggie Jackson
Exactly. Adaptive wisdom, the kind of person who sees the world as it is, not as they wish it to be or assume it to be. And that takes time, it takes effort, it takes unease, etc. but it’s really important that we change our views on what a leader is, that we change our views on what a student or a pundit or a presidential candidate is, because the cost of our certainty are certainly rising, and we can see it everywhere in terms of the polarization, narrowmindedness, etc., the anxiety levels.

I see that uncertainty, if we begin to understand it, to study it, to learn how to use it skillfully, can really change humanity, and give me great hope. They’re even trying to, there’s a movement by leaders in AI today to instill uncertainty in models, in robots, that is to make AI unsure. Now, there is some uncertainty in a robot. It couldn’t traverse the factory floor without some degree of being open to what’s unpredictable in its environment.

But what they’re trying to do, and this is picking up steam, and it’s really quite important, is to make on a robot that’s unsure in its aims. So, say, you have a housekeeper robot, and it’s fetching your coffee, well, today’s AI is built to carry out a task because the rationalist’s definition of intelligence is fulfilling your goals no matter what. And, therefore, that’s both the danger and the wisdom of today’s AI.

Well, an unsure robot, and what I call the “I don’t know” robot, will actually ask you how you want your coffee, or which room across the kitchen, or, “Do you want something?” It’s teachable and it’s more honest. It’s not just doing what it was initially programmed to do. It’s more flexible. And in that very vision of “I don’t know” robot, we can see something a little bit that we should be striving for, too.

Pete Mockaitis
The quote that comes to mind thinking about these notions of certainty is this quote, I come back to it again and again, I just got to have him on the show. Robert Rubin said, “Some people are more certain of everything than I am of anything.” And I can totally relate, it’s like, “Are you sure?” And I think about all these scenarios when the experts tell me the opposite of each other, and they do so very confidently.

Like, roofers. You get multiple bids on a roof project, it’s like, “Wow, that guy said we had to tear it off, and the other guy said we could just put another layer on. And they were both very sure. And they’re the roof experts, and I’m not. What the heck am I supposed to do here?” And I think that if most of us took the time to solicit multiple perspectives from multiple angles, we would see a lot of that, “Wow, these people are very certain of the exact opposite thing. Well, now I have to do some hard thinking.”

Maggie Jackson
Exactly. And we think of uncertainty as being sort of lost, adrift, etc., some of the metaphors used with uncertainty or lostness and wandering, etc., but it’s a form of exploration. It’s kind of a wonderful way to buy time, in a sense, so that you can explore the possibilities and uncover the complexities that are already there.

You’re not creating complexities when you do a little bit more pondering. You’re actually uncovering what’s already there. And it’s not that it’s an endless kind of pursuit but it has its place, and we haven’t given enough due to being unsure.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, Maggie, tell me, any final things you want to share before we shift gears and hear about some of your favorite things?

Maggie Jackson
No, I think we covered a lot of great ground.

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

Maggie Jackson
Yeah, it’s actually a quote from my book, and there are many but I’ll start the quote, “’I know’ seems to describe a state of affairs which guarantees what is known, guarantees it as a fact. One always forgets the expression, ‘I thought I knew.’” That’s Ludwig Wittgenstein, the philosopher.

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

Maggie Jackson
Well, there are lots. Yeah, I’ll tell one little one. And you probably heard of the candle problem. This was a psychological experiment developed in the 1920s in which people were asked to tack a candle to the wall using just a box of matches, some thumbtacks, and then just the candle. Well, people made a real mess of it, and they tried to melt the candle, glue it to the wall, etc.

Well, the answer lies in making a platform out of the matchbox. But the point of this story is that people only see what an object is meant to do, not what it can do, because they’re so sure that matchboxes are there just to hold the matches. They cannot see any further. And what’s wonderful about this study is that if you take a bunch of five-year-olds and give them a similar study, but without the matches, with toys on a shelf, the five-year-olds don’t have any problem with this. Their knowledge doesn’t get in their way of their problem-solving.

Whereas, at age seven and up, they’re beginning to act like adults. They only see what it’s made to do. They don’t ask what it can do. And that’s a miniature example of the beauty of being unsure. And uncertainty is basically another word for open-mindedness.

Pete Mockaitis
And a favorite book?

Maggie Jackson
I would have to say Pride and Prejudice, kind of an old classic but it’s really about two people, Mr. Darcy, Elizabeth Bennet, whose certainty got in the way of their love. And, finally, when they were a little bit less sure, they were able to get together and understand one another despite their differences. I already loved that book before I became an uncertainty junkie, so to speak. But now I kind of see it through the prism of uncertainty.

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

Maggie Jackson
It definitely has to be just plain old paper pad. I’m completely adoring of the technology of paper. By writing, I don’t write everything in the longhand, but I do drafts of what I work on that I call sketches, literally, because I can draw arrows and make circles out of what it is. It’s all over the map. And I find that, by putting something immediately onto a computer, I’m forcing my thoughts onto the template of another person’s design. And so, I find that the legal pads, I go through so many, and they’ve been a huge help to me in my writing.

Pete Mockaitis
And a favorite habit?

Maggie Jackson
Well, in order to get in the focus that I need, there’s a kind of boundary-making, focuses literally a boundary-making, a type of attention that creates boundaries around what you want to be doing, I use alarm clocks and I use distance from my phone. So, if I really have to concentrate, I’ll put my phone on another level of my office, downstairs, basically. If I’m able to take a phone call, it’ll be nearer to me, but it changes how you think, etc. So, I really curate where the phone is.

I also use alarm clocks. So, if I have an appointment in an hour, I’ll put the alarm clock on, and then I don’t have to spend my mental resources thinking about when I have to do this. I then am able to drift off, inhabit the uncertainty, focus on what I need to do, and completely within the new you of what I need to think about.

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

Maggie Jackson
I’d say that the quote from my book that resonates most with people is “Uncertainty is unsettling, and that is its gift.”

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

Maggie Jackson
I would say my website would be a great one to stop and shop. I’m also on Twitter, LinkedIn, but the website is a great resource for my articles, my events, etc., what’s going on with my books.

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

Maggie Jackson
I think that if you realized that at any one moment you might not know, you’ll be giving yourself the power of an open mind.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. Maggie, this has been a treat. Well, Maggie, thank you for this. I wish you much fun uncertainty in the years to come.

Maggie Jackson
Thank you, Pete. It’s been a pleasure. You, too.