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Jan 04
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925: How to Stop People-Pleasing and Feeling Guilty with Dr. Aziz Gazipura

By | Podcasts | One Comment

Dr. Aziz Gazipura explains the dangers of people-pleasing tendencies and shares actionable steps for overcoming it.

You’ll Learn:

  1. The massive costs of being a people-pleaser
  2. How to not feel guilty when saying no
  3. A surprising strategy to build your discomfort tolerance 

About Aziz

Dr. Aziz is a clinical psychologist and one of the world’s leading experts on social confidence. In 2011, Dr. Aziz started The Center For Social Confidence, which is dedicated to helping everyone break through their shyness and social anxiety.

Through confidence coaching, audio and video programs, podcasts, a detailed blog, and intensive weekend workshops, Dr. Aziz has helped thousands of people all over the world increase their confidence and lives out his mission: To help every person who is stuck in shyness liberate themselves to pursue the relationship, career, and life they have always dreamed of.

He lives in Portland, Oregon with his wife Candace and son Zaim.

Resources Mentioned

Dr. Aziz Gazipura Interview Transcript

Pete Mockaitis

Could you kick us off with a dramatic tale about the dangers of people-pleasing?

Dr. Aziz Gazipura

Yeah. Well, I don’t need to make anything up here. And it’s the kind of, like all good dramatic stories, it’s a slow build, where maybe it’s like imagine a character in a movie where they go out and have some drinks, and they really like it, and it just seems like a good time. And then, flash forward many years later, and they have the shakes in their hands because they have to have a drink of alcohol. And that’s actually what niceness is like, or people-pleasing, specifically.

So, you basically make a choice to not be yourself in order to smooth things over or be liked or be accepted. And maybe a classic tale would be you did it when you were young, you did it to fit in at school, you did it to fit in with family. And that was not all horribly off-kilter then. But then I talk to, man, dozens of people every week, where now they’re 37 or they’re 43 and they’ve done pretty good, like inauthenticity and fitting in works. It’s this somewhat adaptive strategy, but it works the way that that drink worked to take away your anxiety, but it doesn’t actually give you what you really want.

I was just speaking with a woman just two days ago, she’s about mid-40s, successful in her career, has a family, has a husband, and feels incredibly lonely, and doesn’t even really know what to change out there anymore because, “I have all the things.” And she’s lonely because no one, not even her husband, really knows her. And that might not sound bad. Some people might hear that and say, “I’ll take the family and the money and the career, and then I’ll be fine.”

But actually, when you get there, and you don’t feel like anything out there is going to change it, and inside you feel profoundly lonely, it’s a story of a lot of suffering. And it’s a story that hundreds of millions of people live out, and feel like they’re the only one, but they’re not.

Pete Mockaitis

So, can you make that all the more real and clear for us? To feel like no one really knows you, what might be some examples of the false impression others on the outside have in contrast to the reality that is within?

Dr. Aziz Gazipura

Well, the impression people have on the outside is what you learned will keep them close to you, and it might be different. And I call them the roles that you’re going to play. So, at work, you have a certain role that you play, “I need to be confident-sounding, in charge, certain with my partner. I need to be pleasing. So, what do they want me to be? I’ll agree to things that I think that they’ll want me to agree with. I’ll focus on the things that they want. We’ll talk about what they want.”

“I also know that they don’t like it if I’m irritable, or if I’m sad. So, I’m going to downplay that or hide that.” And that’s true for friends as well, “I got to be up. I got to be on. I don’t want to be boring. I don’t want to be a sad sack. I don’t want to bring people down. I don’t want to burden people with my feelings, and my woes, and my problems.” So, therefore, at work, you’re going to be that way. And inside you might feel nervous, you might feel insecure, you might question yourself but you don’t show any of that.

And that, people can tolerate a certain amount of inauthenticity at work. But then where it really starts to get to them is when they can’t even be themselves around their friends, their loved ones, their family. You got to hide it and pressure yourself, and so you can’t reveal that you’re feeling sad. You can’t reveal that you feel like something is missing. You can’t reveal any of these things. And that’s where the loneliness comes from for people.

And it might not be these big dramatic things, like, “I can’t reveal that I’ve secretly wanted to leave.” Even just, “I am feeling sad today,” and it’s so simple but it’s a world of difference when you have to keep it all inside, all hidden. And sometimes people, really good pleasers, and I know this because I lived this for many years, you’ll even hide it from yourself, “I’m not sad. Everything’s okay. I just have a stomach ache. I just am tired.”

And it becomes this vague thing that you don’t even know. You don’t even know where you are in all of it because then it’s scary to know what that is and maybe share it with others.

Pete Mockaitis

And so, this loneliness, what are the knock-on, follow-on consequences of that?

Dr. Aziz Gazipura

There’s a variety of different studies around loneliness, but loneliness is pretty much associated with all negative health outcomes and a much shorter lifespan. That’s like the big hammer, right?

Pete Mockaitis

Yup, dying.

Dr. Aziz Gazipura

And quality of life, but sometimes people hear that, and like, “Yeah, yeah, yeah, that’s about everything in life. Too much peanut butter kills you. You got to live.” But actually, not only is it a shorter life, but let’s just talk about the quality of life. And there’s the longest study in the history of human psychology, it’s decades. It’s been going so many decades that they’re now the second generation of people.

Pete Mockaitis

Oh, Waldinger.

Dr. Aziz Gazipura

This is the one done with Harvard students, yeah. And the short version is, it’s relationships. That’s what makes us feel good in life, that’s what makes us feel happy in life, that’s what protects us from hard times in life. And not just you got somebody in your house that’s your roommate. No, we’re talking about confidantes, real relationships, people where you’re in life together.

And so, the loneliness, the cost is you don’t have that, or you have a very limited amount of that, and that is the biggest determiner of true success, which, for everybody, I don’t care what they value in life. True success for everybody is actually to feel rich inside, like feel full of success, of love, of meaning, of resources. And so, you can have external success and feel empty inside, and not have the thing that we all really want, which is those real connections with people.

Pete Mockaitis

Okay.

Dr. Aziz Gazipura

But other than that, it’s great that we should just keep doing it.

Pete Mockaitis

All right. Well, can you give us a ray of hope then, an inspiring tale of a people-pleaser reformed?

Dr. Aziz Gazipura

Yeah, the ray of hope is people-pleasing is not who you are. It’s a pattern that you run. And that’s fantastic news because any pattern that you run you can change. It’s an active process, it’s a verb, like walking or eating. And so, you can put down the fork and no longer be eating. You can put down the people-pleasing pattern and no longer be pleasing. And you can still be very loved by more people than you could ever need to be loved by. And you could be more boldly yourself and actually enjoy who you are and stop trying to be somebody that you’re supposed to be for others.

And I think this is the biggest risk, this is the leap of faith, and that’s why I think people who read my books or work with me because there’s some part of them that says, “That sounds a little too good to be true. You’re saying I can be me, and have love, and belonging?” And the good news, the ray of hope is absolutely yes, and it’s on the other side of that risk, the other side of what we fear, which is, “If I’m really me, everything is going to fall apart, and no one’s going to love me.” But that’s the whole source of the problem to begin with.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. So, warm, loving relationships, longer life, higher quality of life, that sounds swell. And then your organization is called the Center for Social Confidence. Tell us about what that confidence picture looks like on the other side of the people-pleasing.

Dr. Aziz Gazipura

Yes. Well, there is the outer layer, which I think we all may be focused on at first, which is, “I want to be more confident.” What does that mean? Well, that means I can be more bold, I can walk up to people and talk to them, I can initiate conversations, I can network with people, I can just walk into a room and not feel afraid of what people are going to think, I can really just be myself. That means more power in leadership, and influence, and impact.

You can share your idea more directly, more broadly. You can advocate for something. You can advocate for yourself, for your ideas, for your team. Also, that shows up in relationships and love. You can go approach someone that you really are drawn to, who you really want to spend your time and your life with, and you can let them actually see and know the real you. So, those are the outer observable effects.

And then the inner effect as a result of that confidence is that you feel like you belong in this world, and that sense of insufficiency, not enough-ness, and all the scarcity, there’s not going to be enough love, there’s not going to be enough people, like, that dissolves. And that is worth way more than all the promotions, and all the dates, and all the stuff but sometimes we have to start with that outer stuff, and then realize, like, “Wow, me just really feeling that peace inside, that is worth its weight in gold.”

Pete Mockaitis

Well, that does sound absolutely delightful, yes. So, lay it on us, how do we pull this off? I imagine it’s easier said than done.

Dr. Aziz Gazipura
Yes. So, the good news and the bad news. The good news is this is all possible, the ray of hope stuff we were just talking about. The bad news is you probably are going to feel like you’re going to die on the way there. That’s all. But it just feels that way because, let’s rewind, what is people-pleasing? People-pleasing is a survival strategy that you picked up that’s based upon an idea, a conclusion, that’s not even true. But the conclusion you came to is, “I’m not okay as I am. There’s something just me as I am being totally lovable, I don’t buy it.”

Maybe someone told you that. Maybe you interpreted that. Maybe someone wasn’t there for you. Maybe you were abused. I don’t know, but there is some messaging that you picked up, and you’re like, “Wow, just me being me is not enough, and so now I have to do something. And what I need to do is I need to observe you, and if I can keep you happy, then you’ll probably stick with me. And I got to observe if you’re upset, and make sure that I don’t do the things that upset you. I got to see what makes you smile, and make sure I do more of those.” And now a pleaser is born.

And so, it’s rooted in fear, in the fear of abandonment, fear or not surviving, “Because I’ll be left, I’ll be lost. So, now I’m going to live that out for much of my childhood but as a personality, as a whole life strategy.” And so, why it feels like you might die is because it triggers this kind of fight-flight survival response inside to challenge you, which is why most people don’t.

But if you get up to that, like, fed-up point enough, and you’re like, “Well, I don’t want to keep living this way. All right, let’s take the leap,” you don’t stay in dying forever. You don’t actually die but it feels very ungrounding because there’s a sense of certainty and familiarity in that way of being, and you are going to challenge that. That’s why most people don’t just say, “Oh, I’ll do it,” and then actually execute on it.

Pete Mockaitis

All right. Well, so then what does the execution look like in practice? What are the step-by-steps? Do I just go give people a piece of my mind, Dr. Aziz, “Let me tell you what I really think”?

Dr. Aziz Gazipura

So, I have two books on the subject. One is called Not Nice and the newer one that just came out is called Less Nice, More You. And I talk about the pendulum, where people who have been overly passive and pleasing at some point can swing, “Now, I’m going to let the world have it,” and that’s okay.

Maybe that’s a phase to go through but, ultimately, there is a set point that’s much more effective. And I think the key steps from a higher level are these. Number one, you have to decide that you no longer want to be so people-pleasing and nice. And that might seem like a strange step, but it’s like, “Isn’t that what we’re talking about?” Well, no, because many people have a lot of their identities wrapped in, “But being nice means I’m a good person, and I don’t want to be a bad person.” No one wants to be a bad person.

And so, the first thing we need to do is we need to upgrade our understanding of being people-pleasing is not the same thing as being kind, or generous, or loving, or whatever it is that you actually value as a human. And that people-pleasing is more of a compulsion and not a choice, and so you have to be giving, you cannot say no, and that can be very detrimental.

So, someone is struggling, you take an extra hour to support them seems kind, right? The nice person and the people-pleaser doesn’t have that choice, so they could be being eaten up inside. They’re all stressed.

Pete Mockaitis

Eaten up inside and bitter, they’re like, “This jerk is always hogging my life.”

Dr. Aziz Gazipura

“I got too much on my to-do list.” So, now you’re talking about resentment. So, the compulsion part of it, the “nice” person feels like they have to. And any time we feel like we have to do something, and we don’t want to in that moment, that’s a formula, a human formula for resentment. So, now we’re going to start that.

Now, the kind choice is like, “Okay, this person wants this. Do I want to give it? Does it feel right to give it?” And it doesn’t mean it’s comfortable. Your kid is sick or something is happening, and you’re just like, “You know what, but it feels right, it feels like I want to do it.” Then you do it, and you say, “I want to give it.” Then we won’t feel resentment.

Kindness, true kindness leaves a glow inside, you’re like, “I feel good about that.” Whereas, when we’re like, “I couldn’t say no. I mean, look at them, they need me.” And the nice person likes to create this elaborate world in which everybody is super dependent, like, “They would die without me. They would be, oh, my gosh, if I left this partner, or this boyfriend, girlfriend, they’d be devastated for years,” and they don’t even see how it’s a little bit of a…it’s a way that we’re trying to get some sense of significance, perhaps.

The truth is that people have many ways to meet their needs, and you’re just one of them, and you’re not the only one. So, yes, that’s exactly what you’re talking about. That’s the stew of resentment that can form. And so, back to this first step of, “I need to decide I’m not going to be so nice and pleasing” is actually an important first step because, otherwise, we remain in this pattern where this is the only way to be, this is the right way to be as a good person, everything else is bad. And then we will perpetuate that indefinitely.

Pete Mockaitis

And that decision, boy, it just seems like the distinctions and the commitments are so myriad in terms of the boundaries that we’re down with, in terms of “I am committed to doing this and being generous or loving in these domains. And I’m not so much down to do these other things.” It really kind of feels like we got to go, behavior by behavior, or relationship by relationship, when  we determine what that decision really means in practice.

Dr. Aziz Gazipura
Yeah, that’s a great point. And, yes, it is, and there’s a shortcut to doing that, which is it can be distilled into one question, which is an extremely liberating question but it also, if you’ve been living a people-pleasing life, can make you very uncomfortable. And the question is, “What do I want? In this situation, what do I want?”

And even just asking that can push a lot of the buttons for someone who thinks that that’s selfish, “Your life shouldn’t be about what you want. That’s the problem with the world, is too many selfish people.” But actually, we’re just talking about asking the question. You might still choose to say, “Well, what do I want? I want to not take care of my son.” “Well, he’s five and he needs someone tonight. So, you’re going to find a way to work with it.”

So, it doesn’t mean you instantly just, “I do whatever I want. I don’t even care about anyone.” It’s like, no, but you start that behind that question is not just the data of the answer. It’s actually caring about yourself just like you would with someone you love, “What do you want, honey? It doesn’t mean you get everything you want, but I want to know. I want to know. Maybe we can work with it. Maybe we need to compromise here. But what do you really want? And what do I really want?”

I was just talking with a friend earlier today, and he has some friends visiting out of town, they said, “Hey, we want to come have some dinner with you.” And he’s like, “Oh, that sounds good.” And then they’re like, “Oh, also, we’re flying out somewhere the next day. Can we spend the night at your place then we’ll go to the airport?” And he said, “Well, let me talk to my wife and we’ll make sure.”

So, he’s about to go talk to his wife, and he’s like, “Hold on a second. Before I even talk to my wife, what do I want here?” And that’s such so small, we could just steamroll right over the moment and go on with our lives, and that might seem so trivial but, man, you add up those trivial moments, that’s your whole day, that’s your whole week, that’s your whole life.

And you might say, “Well, that’s horrible. How could you not have your friends stay the night? They need a favor. What a bad friend.” Ah, now we’re looking at the roles of the rule of friend, and many people have extreme rules, “You must always say yes to a friend.” But instead, if you tune in and say, “You know what, it feels kind of, I don’t know, confining.” And he got curious about himself, “Why? Well, I was just hoping to have the one evening a week that I can spend with my wife, one on one. She’s so busy. I’m so busy. I just don’t really want to give that up.”

So, now all of a sudden, we discover that the saying no there is actually a loving act for himself, for his wife, for his relationship, so we’re prioritizing something else. We would not even discover that. Now he’s trying to please his friends, so he says, “Yes,” and then he’s feeling maybe his wife is going to be upset with him, so he’s trying to please her. And then the whole evening, he’s just anxious and secretly resentful, which is a disaster.

So, yes, we want to go, day by day, decision by decision, slow down and start to really ask, “What do I want here?”

Pete Mockaitis

That’s good. And what’s interesting is by surfacing that, and if you do make the choice, and maybe, well, one, I think that can generate kinds of creative options that you didn’t even think about to start with, it’s like, “Hey, you can come over between 9:30 and 10:00 p.m. and, yeah, it’ll get you to the airport on time.” And so, there it is. So, you had your cake and eat it, too.

Now, sometimes you can’t but then I guess if you do choose to make a sacrifice on behalf of another, I think you can do so all the more eyes wide open, it’s like, “I am choosing to do something for this other person, knowing it’s inconvenient for me, but because I value this relationship more than I value binging Netflix, or whatever I was in the mood to do that evening.”

And then, as you said, there is sort of a glow. You can feel good about that choice. You made a values-driven decision and chose that which is good in your value system above that which is expedient, and you did so, knowing full well the consequences that could flow from it.

Dr. Aziz Gazipura

Yeah, I love that nuance. And sometimes people hear this, and they think you’re going to become this very stingy person, not just with money but with your time. And that’s actually not the case. It is very much more intentional and you’re linking it with your values. My younger son, who’s eight, we eat a pretty similar breakfast every morning. And one of the ingredients is from downstairs, and he doesn’t like to go downstairs because he’s afraid of whatever, monsters. That’s what lives when you’re eight years old, that’s what lives downstairs in the basement, is monsters.

And so, there was this time when we were trying to help him face his fear, but that one was just so kind of just an uphill battle, and I was like, “You know what, as a loving act, I’m really okay just going downstairs to get the thing. I’ll help him fight his fears in other places, and he doesn’t need to tackle every fear because his dad freaking is obsessed with confidence.”

So, I just decided that, and it’s this kind of sweet act of generosity. He’s not going to be eight years old forever. And when he’s a big hulking teenager and could care less about going anywhere in the house, then that’ll be a sweet memory.

And so, you can actually be really loving and generous in all these different ways. It’s just not coming from this pressure that you have to or else. I think that’s the biggest freedom.

Pete Mockaitis

All right. Well, walk us through the next steps.

Dr. Aziz Gazipura

All right. So, you’ve decided, “I don’t want to be nice,” and then you start to ask yourself, “What do I want?” Then the next step is going to be you do the things that are “not nice.” And that might be saying to your friends, “Hey, I’d love to see you. You guys can come. We’ll get some dinner. It’ll be awesome. And then you’re going to be staying near the airport or something. I want to have the evening to myself with my wife. It’s our one night and I really want to preserve that.” And it’s, “Oh, my gosh, so you’re saying no in that situation.”

Yeah, another not nice thing might be to inconvenience someone by asking them for something, “Can you help me with this?” or, “Can you do that?” There’s disagreeing with somebody, “Ooh, that’s real unpleasing of you.” So, maybe you have a different opinion, it’s relevant to something in business, a decision, whereby it feels high stakes and it’s important to share it.

It might even be just a different idea or preference that doesn’t even seem that important to share but you just share it instead of smiling, and saying, “Oh, yeah, me, too. Me, too.” You’re like, “Yeah, I actually like the person that you seem to dislike. Hmm, that’s interesting.” So, whatever it is, it’s just a small smattering of the potential behaviors of you being more you, more authentic, more real, more bold.

That’s all the “not nice” behaviors. And every single one of those is going to produce probably some level of anxiety at first because that’s me being testing out what could happen, which is going to be some sort of calamity, “If there’s conflict, the relationship is over. If I say no, the person is going to never do anything for me ever again. If I ask for what I want, they’re going to hate me.”

So, we have these dramatic predictions, and we test them out. And it’s a form of exposure, really, like behavioral training where we need to do the steps, which tends to bring about the discomfort. And then there is another step about working with that, but I’ll pause there to see if there’s anything you wanted to ask about this step.

Pete Mockaitis

That’s good. That’s good. And what’s funny, though, is the asking for help, we think that’s not nice or imposing or burden, yadda, yadda, but, in reality, when I’m asked for help, I often am delighted to be trusted, relied upon, to be confided in on the matter, and I really like it. And I guess not all the time. Some things are like, “I really don’t want to do that.”

But I think that’s interesting that sometimes these not-nice behaviors are, in fact, what people really value. Maybe some people don’t get people who disagree or challenge them enough.

So, it’s interesting what we think might be not nice could, in fact, be just what the doctor ordered on the other side of the table.

Dr. Aziz Gazipura

Yeah, and that highlights something really important, which is this strategy of people-pleasing is not a very well thought out effective model of human relations. It’s like, “This is the best predictors and most intelligent, socially intelligent model I can…” No, it’s a cautionary model. It’s, “Hey, any of those things might be a problem so don’t do any of them. That person might respond well to that but they might not, so just, no, don’t.” So, it’s not a very sophisticated or intelligent interpersonal model. It’s just safety-oriented.

Pete Mockaitis

Well, thank you. You got some more steps?

Dr. Aziz Gazipura

Yes. So, after you spoke up, you did the thing, and you’re freaking out inside, then it’s time to do the work, which is to upgrade something inside of yourself. That’s where the real transformation is going to occur. People think the real transformation comes from the action, which is part of it, but then we have to upgrade, otherwise we just keep beating our head against the wall. And you can leave that situation, you say, “Oh, I feel so guilty I told them no. I’m so bad.”

If you just grind yourself through that meat grinder for two days, and then you come out of it, you haven’t probably really learned anything. And so, the next time someone asks you for something, and you think, “I should say no because that’s being less nice,” then you might remember the meat grinder, and you’re like, “I don’t want to do that.” And so, then you probably just go back to the old pattern.

So, to really change, after we say no, and then all that stuff starts to come up, then we get to upgrade our map of relationships. And there’s one that I really love, which is I call your bill of rights, so what you’re allowed to do, and the rules, basically. And so, when you feel really guilty, you can examine it, and say, “Wait a minute, what rule did I break? What did I do that was so bad there?” “Well, you said no to people.” “Okay, so what’s the rule?” “You should never say no.” “Well, to who? My friends?” “Yeah, you should never say no to your friends’ requests.”

“Okay. Wow, that’s a pretty extreme rule. Is that how I’m going to live my life? Are there some downsides to that one?” And then we upgrade with much more healthy, and nuanced, intentionally chosen approaches to life, rules for life. So, for example, you might say, and this is where the bill of rights is, “I have a right to say no to requests.” And that might sound like a simple statement, but if you really start to believe that and live that, that’s a whole different life, not just in terms of the behaviors but how you feel on a daily basis.

I don’t think we can totally upgrade these in a vacuum, where we just sit down with a sheet of paper, and we upgrade our bill of rights, and then we venture forth into the world, and everything is perfect. No, we kind of have to go through this process where we take the action, we feel bad, and then that’s the motivation to say, “Whoa, it’s time for something different.”

But if we do it, and we change, and we upgrade, it’s like a step-by-step. It’s almost like pulling out the faulty coding of the pattern and putting in a new coding, new software, that runs so much better. And it’s the software of more authenticity, more boldness, more actually being you in the world. And it turns out to work a lot better on your system than the nice people-pleasing software.

Pete Mockaitis

And it’s interesting, it seems like those exposures, those reps, really do build up over time when you work through those steps. I suppose I am a people-pleaser myself, and I’ve just sort of gotten clear that I’m disappointing people every day. Like, there are people, maybe this very minute, Dr. Aziz, someone might be unfollowing this podcast or unsubscribing from the Gold Nugget newsletter, which I don’t recommend taking those actions. But, nonetheless, they are taken.

Dr. Aziz Gazipura

Someone out there. There’s a loose cannon out there.

Pete Mockaitis

By the hundreds, by the thousands, and so this happens. And so, what’s empowering is to just, for me, as I just sit with that, it’s like, “Yeah, I have displeased someone, and that’s okay. I have not sinned, I have not violated my values, I have not been, I don’t know, fill in the blank: selfish, greedy, lazy, any number of things that seems to kind of be at the core of a lot of this, is we have these value judgments associated with what you’re calling rules. It’s, like, “I feel bad, therefore, I must’ve done something bad. So, I’ve done something bad. I’ve broken a rule. What was the rule? Oh, wait, that rule is kind of ridiculous. Huh.”

Dr. Aziz Gazipura

Yeah, and there’s what I found, and one of the reasons why when I work with people, and the main ways that I work with people, is in a group environment is because we can identify that rule, and think, “That seems kind of intense,” but it has such momentum of history that I find a lot of this is almost like we’ve been running a propaganda campaign inside of ourselves for 20, 30, 40 years.

And when you’ve heard something for 40 years, it doesn’t matter what’s true or not. It’s hard to challenge. I was working with a gentleman in the program, who has had a hard time, even his relationship with his wife, he’s saying, “This is what I’d like to do on a Saturday.” “I don’t know if I want to do that. Here’s what I want,” like basic stuff.

And so, it almost felt like for the first couple of months he’s in the program, he was, “Hey, it’s okay for me to ask for what I want.” And in some part of the lecture, I’m like, “Of course. Of course.” And then he looks, like, around the room, and like, “Is it really okay for us to do that?” And we need to hear that, we need to get reinforced from outside.

And, hopefully, it’s just reinforcing some new beliefs that are just more sane and healthy. And I think that’s really a key thing to come back to, is, “Hey, is the way I’ve been living really serving me? Is it serving others? Is it really? If I’m getting burnt out, and hurting inside, and experiencing all these mind-body issues, and pain, and illnesses, like is this really how it’s supposed to go?” And I would challenge that, I’d say, “We’re not meant to live and help others at the expense of ourselves.” I think there’s really a beautiful, a much more abundant, win-win way of going through life.

Pete Mockaitis

That is beautiful. And I’m wondering if you recommend starting, if it feels scary, starting big or starting small? Like, “Asking my wife what I want to do on a Saturday,” in that example, is it that you recommend that you have, I mean, a small request might be…?

I guess I’m thinking small might be like you can give a lot of advanced notice. Like, let’s say on a Tuesday, you say, “Hey, honey, I think it’d be really fun on Saturday if we got lunch at Jimmy John’s.” Like, “Okay, that’s an inexpensive restaurant. It’s four days notice. It’s lunch, not dinner. It doesn’t seem as big, primetime of a meal.” So, I’m wondering, is your professional advice to start with some of those smaller, non-pleasing moves or requests, or to go for the bigger ones right off the bat?

Dr. Aziz Gazipura

I would say both are beneficial and it’s going to be based upon your discomfort tolerance, which, by the way, is akin to a muscle that is worth building, and you will build it by doing this. And so, if one is going to just completely blow you out of the water, because our goal here is sustainable. Think of it like strength training over many months, and so you don’t want to go to the gym and just blow yourself out where you can’t work out for three weeks. So, maybe you do the lighter weight at first, then it’s a little easier, and that’s great.

You start to build momentum, and success builds on success, so you have a couple wins, and you’re like, “Well, that didn’t go so bad, so I think that’s a completely valid approach.” And if you want to go faster, you feel like, “I have been in this cage for so long that I’m just ready to do whatever. I got to get out,” then you might feel excited and exhilarated as you really test the edge quicker. But I don’t think there’s one approach that’s better or worse.

Pete Mockaitis

You say discomfort tolerance is a muscle, when we work that muscle doing exactly this. If people-pleasing is a diagnosis, that is apt for you. Are there any other pro tips you have on building the discomfort tolerance muscle? I’ve been into cold plunges lately, so if you can justify me that I’m not a weirdo, and this is actually super beneficial to all sorts of elements of my life, I’ll receive that, Dr. Aziz. But, is cold plunges one of the activities that increases the discomfort tolerance muscle? Or what are some of the other top prescriptions here?

Dr. Aziz Gazipura

As a matter of fact, the cold plunge is.

Pete Mockaitis

Thank you for that.

Dr. Aziz Gazipura

It’s actually cold showers for clients that I work with. And I, about six to eight months ago, invested in an actual cold plunge to take my cold to the next level. And there’s a lot of physical health benefits to them but, honestly, the biggest draw for me is that discomfort tolerance. It’s a training, it’s a visceral training to go into the uncomfortable every day, or however often you do it.

And the cool thing about discomfort tolerance is that it actually does generalize. So, if you took a cold shower that morning, and then later in the day, there’s an opportunity, someone at work is sharing an idea, and you have something you want to add to it, and you’re like, “Well, actually, I think this. I don’t know if they would think that that’s disagreeing, or I’m not sure.” And that back-and-forth kind of hesitant energy, when you’re in the cold shower, about to go in the morning, you’re like, “Uh, should I go into it?” you’re like, “Ah, let’s just…all right, here we go.”

And whatever that is, that ability to go into discomfort, and then withstand the discomfort, it translates because the circumstance might be totally different, one seems physical, one seems social, but on a physiological level in your nervous system, discomfort is discomfort. And when you increase your capacity to do it, you can actually transfer it.

And so, yes, physical feats of discomfort, whether it’s a cold plunge, or just going doing, you know, people will take the elevator instead of the stairs when it’s two flights of stairs. There’s just this unconscious addiction to comfort that we’re living in. So, finding ways, I’d say once a day, on purpose, you could go do a wall sit where you sit against a wall with your back against the wall, and your legs, or your thighs are at parallel to the earth. Hold that for 60 seconds and you’ll be quivering.

Is that going to make you ripped? No, but it’s saying, and it’s all about the framing of it. So, right before I go into a cold plunge, I remind myself, “This is going to make me stronger.” So, it’s framing. It’s the same thing with the wall sit. I’m not doing this just to build muscle or something. I’m doing this to say, “Hey, I can do things that are uncomfortable,” and that will exactly translate over.

And then, of course, there’s dozens of opportunities in your interpersonal social life. And how do you find them? You just know. We all have a radar going on all the time, and saying, “Is that going to be comfortable or uncomfortable?” And most of us are using that radar to say, “Well, if it’s uncomfortable, then go the other way.” And what we actually want to do is you don’t have to go crazy with this. It’s all in the dose. You don’t need to go insane on your dose of medicine here, this discomfort medicine. But a daily dose, even if it’s small, will radically accelerate how quickly you can make these changes in your life.

Pete Mockaitis

Cool. All right. Well, could you now share with us a favorite quote, something you find inspiring?

Dr. Aziz Gazipura

Well, this one I like, this is Tony Robbins, “The quality of your life is directly proportional to the amount of uncertainty you can comfortably tolerate.”

Pete Mockaitis

All right. And a favorite study or experiment or piece of research?

Dr. Aziz Gazipura

Ah, favorite has got to be The Boulder Study of Back Pain of 2021. There’s a book called The Way Out by Alan Gordon where they talk about it, but the Boulder Back Pain study was done to compare back pain treatment, treatment as usual, medications, physical therapy, and then also something called pain reprocessing therapy, which is treating the back pain with the mind and emotion, which has been fascinating for me with my own history of back pain and chronic pain, as well as nice-people developing pain.

There’s a whole chapter in the book, why it’s not nice about that. And so, randomized, controlled trial, gold standard evidence that we can use these mind-body approaches to not just reduce but completely transform back pain is revolutionary for the chronic pain world, and something I’m really excited about getting out into the world in a big way.

Pete Mockaitis

Okay. And a favorite book?

Dr. Aziz Gazipura

There’s one I’m reading right now that I really enjoy, it’s called Free to Focus by Michael Hyatt, and I’m finding it really refreshing for how to reclaim your focus and your time.

Pete Mockaitis

Okay. And a favorite habit?

Dr. Aziz Gazipura

It’s the best and the worst, it’s the cold plunge.

Pete Mockaitis

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

Dr. Aziz Gazipura

Yes, go to DrAziz.com, that’s D-R-A-Z-I-Z.com, and the goal is for there to be a wealth of resources for free. So, there’s a podcast on that page, under the Resources tab. There’s also a mini-course, a video mini-course called “5 Steps to Unleash Your Inner Confidence” also for free. I have a YouTube channel, you can get a link there as well from the Dr. Aziz’s homepage.

So, lots of resources for free. And then if you want to take things further, we have some training courses, and I also work with people in a 12-month life changing yearlong program. So, however far you want to go, I’d love to support you. And if you just want to start with the free stuff or get a book, that’s a beautiful way to really learn that there’s a pathway. There’s a proven pathway out of this stuff, and I’m here to help as many of us as we can to get across that.

Pete Mockaitis

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

Dr. Aziz Gazipura

Yes. Whatever is going to make you the most awesome at your job is also the thing that’s probably either scary or uncomfortable. It’s, like, really practicing that boldness and facing what we fear will not only produce just beautiful results in your career but will also make you feel good at your work, you’ll feel way more engaged.

Pete Mockaitis

Beautiful. Dr. Aziz, this has been a treat. I wish you much fun and minimal people-pleasing.

Dr. Aziz Gazipura

Thank you, Pete. What a fun and interesting and dynamic interview. Really appreciate it.

Dec 07
0

921: Overcoming Failure and Achieving the Impossible with Astronaut Mike Massimino

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Former NASA Astronaut Mike Massimino shares powerful insights on how to push past failure and achieve the impossible.

You’ll Learn:

  1. The 30-second rule for dealing with failure
  2. The trick to getting along with people you dislike
  3. The most important lesson Mike learned while in space

About Mike

Mike Massimino served as a NASA Astronaut from 1996-2014 and flew in space twice for the final two Hubble Space Telescope servicing missions. He became the first human to tweet from space, was the last human to work inside of Hubble, and set a team record with his crewmates for the most cumulative spacewalking time in a single space shuttle mission. He received his PhD from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). He is an engineering professor at Columbia and an advisor at the Intrepid Sea, Air, and Space Museum.

He is a frequent expert guest and has been called the real-life astronaut who inspired George Clooney’s role in the movie “Gravity.”

Resources Mentioned

Thank you, Sponsors!

  • Wildhealth. Take control of your health and get 20% off at wildhealth.com/AWESOME with code AWESOME.
  • The Management Muse podcast. Sharpen your leadership skills with Cindi Baldi and Geoffrey Tumlin

Mike Massimino Interview Transcript

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

Mike Massimino
Thanks for having me, Pete. It’s good to be here.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, Mike, I’m excited to be chatting. You are a bona fide astronaut, and you spent some time in the Hubble Space Telescope. And my hometown Danville, Illinois has a hero we’re quite proud of, Joe Tanner, who also worked on the telescope. Tell us, you know each other.

Mike Massimino
Oh, yeah, Joe was a little senior to me but he was very helpful and a good mentor and instructor. He really was great. I call him St. Joseph because he was such a nice guy. He’s a religious guy but he was also just a good guy and was very thoughtful, a really good guy. You should be proud of him, Pete. He’s a good guy.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, I’m glad, yes. Danville, Illinois, we love to be proud of Joe Tanner and Dick Van Dyke.

Mike Massimino
Oh, he’s another good guy. I met him a few years ago.

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, good.
Mike Massimino
Yeah, I met him. We both were on the same talk show together, and I can’t remember which one it was. It was in L.A., and I got to meet him in the green room and spent some time with him. He’s just a really nice fellow.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, that’s cool. You are plugged into all the cool kids but I think my listeners must know an awesome tale from your time in space.

Mike Massimino
So, I’ll just give you a little bit of background. I got a chance to service the Hubble Space Telescope so that was my job as a space worker on both my missions. So, an awesome tale from space, I would say, for me, what I still think about almost every day, Pete, is the chance to look at our planet and enjoy the view.

And the reason I get to think of that every day is not only the view itself that I saw, I thought I was looking into an absolute paradise, is that I have a different appreciation for the planet now. I think we’re living in an absolute paradise. We should be very happy every day we have a chance to be here. And I got that impression looking at our planet from space. It just looked like it was a perfect place for us to have. We’re very lucky to be here. I felt like I was looking into heaven.

And so, I think about that all the time. But being around the planet, you get a chance to engage it, and enjoy its beauty whether you’re looking at buildings, or people, or a mountain, or clouds. It truly is an amazing place, and we should try to appreciate it every day.

Pete Mockaitis
That’s beautiful. Thank you.

Mike Massimino
You’re welcome.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, now my wife will make sure I ask you. You actually had a medical disqualification but you trained your very eyes and brain to see better. How is that even possible? What did you do?

Mike Massimino
Well, the third time I applied to be an astronaut, I got an interview. The first two times I was just rejected outright. The third time, though, I got an interview, and then I was medically disqualified. I failed the eye exam.

I didn’t know if LASIK existed back then but they certainly didn’t accept it, or they didn’t accept any kind of medical procedure to improve your eyesight, and you had to see pretty well without glasses and contacts. Well, all these rules are changed now so it’s not an issue any longer. But back then, in the mid-1990s it was still a pretty strict requirement to see well without your glasses.

And I was left with no options, really, it seemed. So, what I did was look into it a little bit, and I found out about vision training where you can do exercises and try to train your eyes to focus beyond what they’re looking at, which is kind of interesting.

So, if we focus at an object that’s put in front of us, we can see that clearly. And two feet, we change our focus and we can see that but, eventually, you run out of room, and what you try to do is look beyond that object and try to focus on something beyond that object, and then what you’re looking at kind of comes into focus.

So, it’s a bit of a training not just for your eyes but your brain as well. And I found an optometrist in Houston that specialized in that, and she helped me out, and was able to pick up a couple lines on the eye chart so I could at least apply again. I was able to get medically qualified again and, at least, I was able to submit another application. Once you’re medically disqualified, that’s it. You’re done but I was able to get it overturned.

Pete Mockaitis
That’s beautiful. And as I’m imagining this in my own mind’s eye, I’m hearing a Rocky montage music as you’re doing vision training.

Mike Massimino
There you go.

Pete Mockaitis
Was it like that each day?

Mike Massimino
No, it wasn’t really very physical or Rocky with the physical. No, it wasn’t that. It was more like, I don’t know, some kind of strange evil eye I was giving somebody, it seemed like it, kind of staring out. I don’t know what it would’ve been. More like a Psycho movie or something but not Rocky. Rocky music can get involved in other things.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, if we cut the scenes together and just so, and put the right soundtrack behind it, yeah, I think that could be an inspiring portion of your movie.

Mike Massimino
Maybe so.

Pete Mockaitis
The Mike Massimino tale coming to big screen.

Mike Massimino
There you go.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. Well, so you got a book here, Moonshot: A NASA Astronaut’s Guide to Achieving the Impossible. That sounds cool. Could you perhaps kick us off with a couple stories, maybe one inspiring, an inspiring victory and a disappointing failure of those who set out to achieve the impossible?

Mike Massimino
Well, it’s interesting you mentioned that because I think every victory was preceded by a failure. So, to me, in my life, Pete, they seem to run together. So, the first of those, I mentioned I’d been medically disqualified and things weren’t working out with me but I went through vision training and then I was able to rectify that and get selected as an astronaut, so that was a victory. It ended up as a victory.

And I think that things like that, and also failing my qualifying exam at MIT the first time I took it, I did miserably on it and failed, and my advisor talked to me afterwards, and said he didn’t think it was worth my while to try again. They typically give you a second chance at this six months later for that exam. And I thought about it and decided I did want to give it a try, even though it seemed unlikely. And I went back and told him what my decision was, and he said something like, “You know, Mike, if one can learn to live with indignities, one can go far in life.”

And I think it was his way of saying, “If you can get knocked down and beat up, and get up again, you can go far.” And I looked at what I had done to fail, I got cooked in the oral part of the examination. It was a written part followed by the next day, it was an oral exam, and I wasn’t good at thinking on my feet. And some of my friends, I reached out to my friends about it, they knew what happened, and I told them what happened, and the suggestion was, “Well, let’s put together a little team to help you.”

And my friends who had passed the exam in the past, I’d buy them cookies on Friday afternoon, and they would drill me at the blackboard in a small conference room at MIT, and I got much better at answering questions on my feet. And so, I was able to retake the exam and come out with a victory. And I think that those lessons, that and other things, I think anything worthwhile I think is difficult and it doesn’t work out the first time.

And once I got to be an astronaut, every one of us who was in my astronaut class had some sort of adversity to overcome because it’s not an easy thing to do. You just don’t sign up to be an astronaut. It’s a pretty long and could be grueling process to get in there and faced with lots of obstacles. But once you get in, you’ve accomplished something by getting in, but you haven’t done anything yet, Pete. You just showed up for work.

And so, now I think it’s that same grit and determination that get us to the goal that is required to make us successful once we’re given the opportunity. It’s no time to slack off. And so, you talk about success and failure, I was faced with that throughout my training, and also in space. I was repairing the Hubble Space Telescope in my final spacewalk, and it was a very complicated repair, but there was something I was going to do, which was remove a handrail which was blocking my access to this panel that I had to remove to get to a power supply.

It was a very complicated spacewalk, the most complicated, complex one we’ve ever tried. And I made a real bonehead mistake. So, this is where the failure is. I stripped the screw when removing that handrail and we didn’t have a backup because it was so simple. We had a backup for everything else but not this but they came up with a solution.

The handrail was loose at the top. I had gotten through the screws at the top off. There’s just one stuck on the bottom, and the solution was just to tear it off. Now that might seem simple but it took about an hour to come to that solution. And I was able to comply with that, rip off that handrail, and continue with the repair.

So, I think, I would say, each major victory or success I’ve had was always preceded by a pretty bad failure. And in the way I recovered was getting help, both when I was taking my qualifying exam, I got help. I got help from an optometrist to get over the medical problem I had, and then I got help from the mission control center.

And I talk about that in the book where you’re not in this alone. When you need help, reach out to your mission control center, whoever that is. Know that help is there for you somewhere. Reach out. People know you need help. And also, be that person that other people can come to when they need help.

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, I love that. That’s a fantastic principle right there. And I will think of you every time I strip a screw from now on, which is semi-often actually, Mike, I’m like, “Don’t beat yourself up.”

Mike Massimino
Happens all the time, man. Well, it happened at the wrong time, Pete.

Pete Mockaitis
Out in space.

Mike Massimino
It really happened. I looked out, when I first realized what I had done, I took a look out, bent down to see what I had done, and I didn’t see a hex head hedge screw anymore nor a piece of metal. And I kind of leaned out of the telescope, I leaned myself out, I was in a foot restraint. I leaned out and looked at the planet, and we were over the Pacific Ocean, Pete, and I couldn’t imagine a hardware store to get to. So, it’s one thing when you strip a screw at home, it’s another thing when you’re in space when that happens but, luckily, the team came through for me with a good solution.

Pete Mockaitis
I’m curious if you drive screws any differently now as a result of that one experience.

Mike Massimino
I kind of do but I’ll tell you the other one. So, those were big screws, they were big bolts, and we didn’t expect them to be a problem. But one of the next things I had to do was remove 111 small screws that were really tiny, and those we were more concerned about stripping than the one that was easy. So, it certainly changed the way I behaved from then on for the spacewalk, and I try to remember that at home, too. You can create a lot of problems and a lot of work for yourself by moving too quickly, so you try to learn from your mistakes.

One of the things I talk about or write about is that if you’re going to make mistakes, it’s okay to be upset and give yourself 30 seconds of regret, beat yourself up internally, call yourself names, don’t vocalize it because you’ll scare people but leave it to 30 seconds and then move on. And that’s something that helped me because you’re going to make mistakes. You don’t mean to but it’s going to happen.

And then the other thing to remember when you’re dealing with a problem is it could always get worse. No matter how bad it is, you can make it worse. And sometimes we make one mistake and we follow it up by trying to rush and do better, and we make another mistake. And now we’ve got a problem B to fix before we can go back to problem A.

So, that’s what I try to keep in mind, particularly during my spacewalks, and when I’m working on stuff around the house. You make a mistake, 30 seconds of regret, and move on. Try to solve it and then don’t make it worse. Give yourself a chance to fix one problem at a time.

Pete Mockaitis
It’s paradoxically very comforting that idea of, “Oh, I can make it worse” because, in a way, well, one, it’s just absolutely true. I’ve just lived that. And, two, it’s just sort of a potent reminder of when you feel powerless in those moments, you do have power. And even if you don’t feel much hope that you can make it better, you have the power to make it worse.

Mike Massimino
You do. No, you absolutely do. And when I made that mistake, I mentioned earlier, I even thought about, “How could I make this worse? Well, I could break something. I could do something to my spacesuit. I could lose the tools I was going to need to fix this.” You’ve got to be really careful. Things float. Objects can become permanent satellites if you’re not careful with them and you don’t use the right protocol to tether things and to keep an eye on things.

And I saw that happen. I’ve seen guys lose one tool, and then have to go get a replacement, and lose that one as well, and now you’re really cooked. So, I’ve noticed these things, and you’ve got to be careful because once you do one thing wrong, if you try to rush to make up for it especially, guess what’s going to happen, Pete, problem number two is going to happen. It will get worse so you’ve got to be careful. Get help. It’s time to slow down and get help when that happens.

Pete Mockaitis
And so, I’d love your take here – is 30 seconds better than zero seconds or 10 seconds?

Mike Massimino
I think so.

Pete Mockaitis
Let’s hear it.

Mike Massimino
Because you need to be regretful. I think. And I think 30 seconds, to me, is a good enough time that you can beat yourself up. You don’t want to ignore it, “Ah, I’ll leave it in the past.” See, the thing is people keep telling me, “You’ve got to leave it in the past. Move on from your mistakes. Learn from them and move on.” But it’s hard to move on, and I tended to beat myself up for a long time when something would go wrong or I’d make a mistake. It could go on for a week of regret, like, “Oh, man, I really messed that up. It’s terrible.”

But you’re not getting that time back. And in space, you can’t afford to check out for even a minute. You got to stay engaged. And so, that’s a lesson that I learned because I had to. In space, I just could not check out. I’m the guy out there doing the spacewalk. I can’t wallow in the misery. I have to stay engaged. But the value of it is for what goes on, on the planet, all the time when we make mistakes, and that same principle applies.

And I think it’s okay to be remorseful and be regretful, and say, “Holy cow, that was a terrible stupid thing to do. I can’t believe I did that,” and rant. Let yourself have it for 30 seconds, and then you got to get back in the game.

Pete Mockaitis
All right.

Mike Massimino
Leave it in the past. Flush it. Leave it in the past.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, you’ve got some other perspectives here, such as cultivating a bank of good thoughts. What is this tool about? And how does it help us?

Mike Massimino
All right. So, for that one, I was told a rule or something to think about by my friend Alan Bean, who was the fourth person on the moon, fourth person out of the 12 to walk on the moon. And he told my entire astronaut class that the key to being a good leader and a good teammate is to find a way to care for and admire everyone on your team.

At the same time, we often, to solve complex problems in today’s world, we work together with a diverse group of people, because if everyone thinks the same way, you’re not going to solve major problems. You need people who have different perspectives. Sometimes that can lead to friction and you might find that you don’t like somebody, like, “I just can’t admire that person. I don’t…and I can’t…”

So, if you find someone like that, Alen went on to explain, don’t think of it as you don’t like them. Think of it as you don’t know them well enough, and take the time to get to know them, and find something that you care and admire about them. And I kind of added onto that concept with this bank of good thoughts that you mentioned, that I think it’s important to, when you find someone you don’t like, and you take that time, you got to find… you think you don’t like.

It’s not that you don’t like, you don’t know them well enough. You really don’t. Because people who are in your family or people that are in your workplace, they’re there for a reason. Their name wasn’t picked out of a hat. They have something to add and you have to spend a little time. And when I’ve done that, I’ve always felt so much better about things.

One of my best friends I had a very bad impression with when I first met him, another astronaut, named Andrew Feustel. I thought he was kind of loose and didn’t care, and I just was wrong. And I took the time to get to know him, and we’re great friends. I spoke to him yesterday for about an hour on the phone. A really good friend of mine. And my first impression wasn’t great but I don’t know what he thought of me. Probably not great either, but we took the time to get to know each other, and we really love each other. A great guy. A really great friend.

And I think it’s important, when you find that thing that you like about a person, that you care, that you find that common ground, something that they’ve done that’s good, when people help you, when they show up for you when you need them, when they do some kind act somewhere in their life, or whatever it is that you have about them, that you found out, or that you’ve experienced with them, you have to put that in the bank of good thoughts because you’re going to need to take a withdrawal.

When you start feeling badly about that person, when they do something that might aggravate you, don’t act right away. Take a beat and go get a withdrawal from that bank of good thoughts, and have that good thought in your mind, “Yeah, this person might’ve done this that I didn’t like, and I need to address it, but before I go and send that bad email, or confront that person in an angry way,” because that’s not good.

Go to the bank of good thoughts with that good thought and have that in the forefront of your mind, and say, “Look, I really care about this person. We might have this misunderstanding. I’m going to have to deal with it, talk to them about, to clear the air, but I’m going to go in there with that good thought.” And I think that’s a good way to do it because one bad experience, one bad thought, one bad email, one final to handle, whatever it is, that can destroy a thousand good things.

So, one bad thing, that’s worth a negative a thousand, and to make it up, you’re going to do a thousand good things to make up for it, I think, with a relationship. And that’s what we’re dealing with when we’re working on a team, is building those good relationships with our teammates.

Pete Mockaitis
Now, when you say bank of good thoughts, I am actually imagining specific statements associated with specific people. Is that fair? And could you give us some examples of how these are articulated?

Mike Massimino
Like, for example, with a family member, my brother, for example. He has come through for me on many occasions. And if we have an argument, or something is going on, I try to remember, “This is one of the most important people in my life.” You might argue as siblings or you disagree about things, but he has been there for me when I really need him, and I try to remember that as best I can.

With my crew mates, I try to think of the times where they helped me when I needed them, when I was counting, when I was having some trouble with a concept or with training, and they were there for me and stuck by me. I try to think of that. Or, with my friend Drew that I mentioned, he was a really smart guy, very mechanically inclined, would help me fix all kinds of things. So, that personal relationship where I appreciate his help, but also, I admire his ability that he was a great spacewalker and a really good astronaut is what I came to find.

I do talk about one case where there was one person we were working with on our team, an engineer, that we were having some difficulty with, and he just seemed strange. That person was just like, “I don’t know about this guy.” And people would discount what he would say because they thought he was a little bit different. But I took the time to get to know him, and realized, “This guy is really smart, and he was really dedicated, and he could probably be doing anything that he wanted to in his life, but he decided to dedicate his time and his career to the space program, and, more specifically, helping us be successful on Hubble.”

And so, the feeling was, “Well, it’s a strange idea, whatever he was talking about,” that might turn people off, I try to think of, “Wait a minute. This guy is a really smart guy. Maybe he’s not communicating his ideas well. Let’s give him a chance. Let’s remember what’s his value. Let’s not devalue people. Let’s remember why they’re here and what they can do for us, and what they can do to help the team. Not just for output, what they can do to help the team.”

Pete Mockaitis
That’s super. And do you have these written down somewhere?

Mike Massimino
No, they’re in my head.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay.

Mike Massimino
Maybe I should write them down, Pete, but it’s in my head.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, I guess I’m just imagining in the heat of battle if you’re really ticked off at somebody, you might have a hard time remembering the good thoughts you have about them.

Mike Massimino
Just take them, Pete. You can remember.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. And now, I’m thinking about professionals who, in the course of their jobs, are feeling maybe a little bit timid or scared, in certain contexts. Maybe it’s before a big presentation, or taking on a risk, or making a career change, or something. You have faced some uncertainties, some potentially scary things, and found the courage within. How do you think about courage and stepping up and enduring discomfort well?

Mike Massimino
Whenever you’re nervous, I think that that’s okay. I think that that shows that you actually care about what you’re doing. And if you’re not nervous, it probably doesn’t mean that much to you. If you’ve got an assignment or something to do that seems scary or makes you nervous, I think that’s a good sign. I think that you should try to use that to help you get ready. I don’t think being scared is good.

There’s times in my life where I was scared and I tried to shut that out because I couldn’t afford it. The thought that went to my mind during one of my spacewalks were, after I made that mistake, I was going to have to do some things I was a little bit uncomfortable doing. I had to go and translate, I had to move as a spacewalker in some areas that were going to be difficult to do that in, and I was scared, like, “Oh, my gosh, what happens if something happens here?”

And I realized being scared is not going to help. I had an airplane incident one time, we had a hydraulic leak in the airplane, we might have to eject, and right away you know the fear or scared, and I realized, “Being scared is not going to help me here. I’m trained. Let me follow the procedure.” And I found that you can use that nervousness, an anticipation to get ready and make your plan.

And then when it’s actually time to face whatever it is you’re doing, I think thinking about is a lot worse than doing it once you’re actually in the heat of the moment, whether it’s making a presentation, or delivering whatever it is you need to deliver to a group, or whatever that might be, whatever that event is, that now it’s time to relax and trust, and trust your gear, the tools you have to help you, whether that’s a computer, or a parachute, or whatever it is you’re using that day. In my case, it was some of those things, like getting in an airplane and trusting a parachute is going to work if I need it.

But trusting your gear, your tools, your computer, whatever it might be, trust your training. Your name wasn’t picked out of a hat. The reason you’re given that assignment was for a reason. And whatever you did to get ready, you can consider as training. And then you’ve trained yourself to be ready for it, and you’ve shown yourself to be worthy, so trust your training.

Trust your team is the third trust. Life is rarely a closed book test. It’s usually an open-book test. You can get help when you need it. So, remember that there’s a team behind you to help you when you need them. And, finally, trust yourself that you’re going to be up for the challenge. So, I think that’s what helped me face really scary things that made me nervous. It was just trust that, “I’m ready for this. It’s okay. I can handle it. I have a team behind me. I have the right tools. It’s going to be okay.”

So, that’s what helped me face some of these things, that, even looking back on, I’m not sure how I did it, but that’s how I did it.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. So, what seems really wise there is you feel fear coming on, and you just decide, “That’s not going to serve me. I put that aside.” Is it just like that, Mike? Is that all there is to it?

Mike Massimino
Well, not necessarily. It depends on the moment you’re in. Let me give you another example. I don’t like heights. And I was on an exercise out in the Canyonlands where we were doing a lot of rock climbing and rappelling and hiking at heights, like very close to the edge of a cliff, and walking up very steep rock formations, and it was driving me nuts after a while.

I just didn’t like it. And I realized I had to figure out a way to get through this because we were out there for two weeks. And right from the get-go, I think I probably dealt with it for an hour or two, but after a while, I was like, “I don’t think I can do this for a couple weeks.” And I reached out to one of my teammates, Jim Newman, who was my spacewalking buddy, and we were out on this adventure together with the rest of our crew. And I said, “Look, man, I don’t know what I’m going to do. I just don’t like this.”

And he says, “All right. Let’s try to take care of this.” And during one of our breaks, we kind of went around the corner, we were having lunch on a rock, more or less. We’re pretty high up on a mountain in an incline. And we walked around the corner so no one would see us around the corner of this rock, and there was a steep face there, and he held my hand, and we walked around it. And then, he let go and made me move around by myself.

Then he made me jump up in the air just to get the confidence that I was okay. So, I think that there are times where you need to think. If you’re in a situation where you’ve been trained to handle the situation, like, I think a lot of times you are, something goes wrong, and hopefully you’re able to handle it, or you’ve been trained to handle it.

So, it depends on the situation but there were times where I was, like, “I can’t be scared right now.” Being scared is a luxury. If you have time to be scared, I think that maybe things aren’t as bad as you think. But I felt like, in those few occasions, like in the aircraft and when I was spacewalking, when something came up, I needed to work the problem. Just being scared was not going to help me. So, yes, I did turn off.

But in other cases where, like the example of being afraid of heights and being scared of the situation I was in, I had time to try to solve that. And it wasn’t just a 10-minute experience. I was going to have to be out there for a couple weeks so I dealt with it in a different way. But I think it’s okay to feel these things. It shows that you want to be better at them when you’re nervous but the scared part of it, I think that could affect our ability to think at a time where we need to think.

Pete Mockaitis
I like that a lot. And as you’re sharing your story, it sounds like, I guess, psychologists would say, “Well, that’s simply exposure therapy,” and how that works. And I’m reminded of Bryan Cranston has a lovely autobiography, it’s called My Life in Parts, or A Life in Parts. And when he was doing theater stuff, he was scared of the heights associated with the lights and stuff.

And so, his director said, “Okay. Well, here’s how we fix that,” just very matter of fact. “I’m going to hold this ladder and you’re going to climb up to the top.” He’s like, “I’m scared.” “Yes, I know.” And he’s like, “Now, you’re just going to hang out there for a while.” He’s like, “Yeah, but I’m scared.” And it’s like, “Yeah, it’ll go away eventually.” And sure enough, it did. And that’s how you solve that.

Mike Massimino
Yeah, I would avoid that. The other way is to avoid height. I try to avoid it wherever possible, but sometimes you’re in a position where you need to deal with it. And I found myself in those situations where I had to do it. I just had to, “There was no choice. This is the way home. You have to deal with it.” And that’s when you got to figure out a way to face it.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. I’d also love to hear, in the unique environment that is being out in space with just a few teammates, that’s a whole another flavor of environment in which teamwork skills get put to the test. Can you share, are there any nifty principles or takeaways that you believe can be handy for typical working professionals as well that you’ve picked up from that environment?

Mike Massimino
I think what I learned at NASA pretty much from the get-go was the importance of the team success and that you can’t do things alone. And that was taught to me very early on. My first week at NASA was mainly administrative stuff where we all got to know each other a little bit, we’re in a classroom where we get briefings about different things but we were going to start the training in the second week in earnest.

And one thing that I wasn’t looking forward to that I knew was coming up was that I was going to have to pass a swim test. I did not like the water as a kid. I never learned how to swim very well but we were told, and when we were accepted as astronauts, we were given our packet, after we get the phone call, saying, “You’re in,” which was a great phone call. We got a package of info, and in that there was, in the cover letter, like the second paragraph, it said, “Please practice your swimming skills because you’re going to have to pass a swim test in order to go to water survival training with the Navy.”

And the reason we need to go to water survival training is we’re going to be in an ejection seat aircraft, we eject over water, we need to be able to survive in the water until the help can get to us. But we’re on the Space Shuttle, also there’s a bailout mode. We might end up bailing out if you can’t land on a runway, if you’re having trouble during launch and you can’t make it to orbit, you can’t come back and land in the United States, and you can’t make it over to the other side of the ocean to southern Europe or to one of the landing sites in southern Europe or North Africa, you end up in the ocean.

So, in order to do our jobs, is we had to go through that training. And then to do that training, we had to pass the swim test. And I practiced as much as I could but I still was worried about making myself look like an idiot in the water.

And so, at the end of that first week, we’re about to go home for the weekend, and Jeff Ashby, one of the pilots from the class before us, was our class sponsor, kind of leading us through our training. And he said to us at the end of that day on Friday, he said,
“Who are the strong swimmers in this class?” and a few people raised their hand. And then he said, “Who are the weak swimmers, more important? I want to see a show of hands.” And I raised my hand as a weak swimmer. And he said, “Okay, anyone that didn’t raise their hands can go home. But the strong swimmers and the weak swimmers are going to stay after class. We’re going to arrange a time to meet over the weekend at a pool, and the strong swimmers are going to help the weak swimmers with their swimming because when we go to the pool on Monday, no one leaves the pool until everyone passes that test.

And so, that setup for me, that in trying to accomplish something, it’s a team goal. And individual success is great but if you’re good at something, your job is to help your teammates. And if you’re having trouble with something, your job is to admit it because you don’t want to hold back the rest of the team. And that set the bit of my head of what it was going to be like, that we’re depending on each other.

And so, when we got to space, and you’re talking about conflict, I felt like space life brings out the best in people because you knew that you had to depend on that person in order to be successful on the mission. You can’t do it alone. And that also, for me, what was helpful, was that, what we talked about earlier, when a conflict did arise, you’re like a family member, you love each other, but you might argue once in a while with your crew mate, and you’re going to have conflicts and disagreements, and that’s not good but they’re going to happen, and you need to deal with them.

But I think it’s always good to remember why you like that person, and why they’re important to you, and try to address the problem with that in mind, with good intentions, and not being mean. And that’s the way we did it. So, we would have a conflict or a problem with somebody, we always raise it and always honestly, and usually it was better to clear the air. Don’t let it fester because it just gets worse for the team to do that.

And if you look at it from the perspective that, “I’m speaking up about this for the sake of the team, for the sake of the mission,” then it’s not necessarily just a personal problem, it’s, “Hey, I think this is something we need to talk about because I think it’s going to hurt our team.” Then I think everyone can get on board with that if you think of it that way.

One of the things you mentioned, too, about people not wanting to speak up or raise something, one of the things I learned was the importance of speaking up, whether you’re having an issue with someone, or you made a mistake, or you have an idea, and oftentimes it’s the new person that has the best ideas. And so, I think that people should speak up, and I think it’s up to leadership, though, to foster that sort of culture where, if someone speaks up and admits a problem they’re having, they’re not going to be punished, or a mistake they made, they’re not going to find retribution for it. They’re going to be helped, and we can learn from their mistakes.

And so, if not, if people don’t come forward with the mistakes they’ve made, then people are going to repeat them, and that doesn’t always work because sometimes these mistakes might be something that could hurt you. If you’re in an airplane or a spaceship, and you do something wrong and you get away with it, you want to tell people about it because the next guy might not get away with it. So, it’s important to have a culture, I think, where those concerns can be raised.

And also, good ideas. A new person has a fresh perspective on things, and a lot of times it’s the new person that has the right idea. In my case, doing spacewalks, one of the spacewalks I was assigned to in my first flight had been done before but it didn’t always go well. It took a long time and it’s hard to align one of the scientific instruments on the Hubble. And I had a suggestion of a tool that could help us align it, and I put that forward, and the team liked it, and we designed it, and that’s the way we installed the instrument using the tool that I envisioned.

Now, for every good idea I had, there was probably 20 of them that stunk, but you don’t want to squash the bad ones or the ones you think aren’t good. You want to hear them out because you don’t want to lose that creativity. You want people to keep coming back with their ideas. So, I think leadership needs to set the tone that people can bring up concerns, can bring up ideas, can raise conflicts, so we can talk about it and move on.

And people need to feel that leadership has that culture, is fostering that so they’re not going to get in trouble for bringing something up, that they have the ability to speak up when they feel there’s a need to say something.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. That’s good. Thank you. Mike, tell me, anything else you want to make sure to mention before we shift gears and hear about some of your favorite things?

Mike Massimino
No, go ahead.

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

Mike Massimino
“If one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with the success unexpected in common hours.” What do you think of that? Henry David Thoreau.

Pete Mockaitis
I hope you do voiceovers, Mike.

Mike Massimino
I have. I’ve actually done…I was a voice in the latest Beavis and Butt-Head movie, the voice of mission control in “Beavis and Butt-Head Do the Universe.” Well, take that. What do you think of that, Pete?

Pete Mockaitis
I don’t know why it’s not in your bio, Mike. I feel like that should be the first thing.

Mike Massimino
That should be the first thing we mentioned. I don’t know. And we talked about all the space and everything while this other…yeah, I lead with that. I save that one, Pete, if I meet a Nobel Prize winner or some really smart person who’s telling me about something they did, “Oh, I was a voice in the latest Beavis and Butt-Head movie. How about that?”

Pete Mockaitis
I very much appreciate that. Thank you. And could you share with us a favorite study or experiment or bit of research?

Mike Massimino
For me, personally, the stuff that I enjoy doing, I teach at Columbia’s human-machine interaction and figuring out what humans can do well, and what machines can do well, and designing displays to help people control things. That’s what I enjoy. But as far as the stuff that’s interested me, that I don’t necessarily participate in but I find amazing, is the astronomy, particularly the stuff that’s come out of the Hubble Space Telescope, and now what we’re seeing with the James Webb Telescope.

I was very pleased to be able to participate in those missions, in the Hubble Space Telescope missions. And to see the science that came out of it, that research I think is amazing because it’s answering some of the big questions of, or trying to answer some of the questions of “Are we alone in the universe? How did we get here? Where do we go after? How did this all happen?” And they’re getting closer to those answers.

And it’s through the use of these amazing telescopes and some really smart people that have been able to come up with those answers, and also coming up with questions that we don’t know the answers to yet. I installed an instrument called the Advance Camera for Surveys that was used to validate the theory of dark energy, which led to a few astronomers getting the Noble Prize in Physics as a result of that discovery, which was an energy source.

The universe is expanding but it’s also accelerating, and they don’t know why it’s accelerating. It doesn’t make any sense. It’s like throwing a football, instead of it landing on the ground, slowing down and landing, it goes faster. It actually picks up acceleration, it goes faster. And that’s what’s happening to the universe, and they call that dark energy. So, I think those are the really cool things that’s going on. And I don’t directly work in that research area but I feel like I’ve had a hand in it by fixing the telescope that they use for a lot of this stuff.

Pete Mockaitis
That’s cool. They didn’t give you a piece of the prize though.

Mike Massimino
No, not at all. No, but I feel like I had their gratitude, that’s for sure. Every time I see one of those folks, they say, “Oh, thank you for risking your life so that we could do our research.” And I’m like, “Thank you for giving me a good reason to go to space.” So, yeah, it’s like a mutual admiration society there.

Pete Mockaitis
That’s beautiful. Well, I want to ask about a favorite book, and if I may steer you in the direction of something physics related. It’s funny, I’ve actually, by fluke of how my credits worked out in high school and college, never taken a physics course, and I feel a little ashamed. And I might just take one myself, like university continuing education extension, whatever.

But that was some fascinating stuff about the dark matter. Are there any cool books you recommend that are very accessible for lay people to wet their whistle and get a great understanding of physics, and maybe less of a textbook flavor and more of a, “Whoa, this is amazing” flavor?

Mike Massimino
Well, my friend Neil deGrasse Tyson has a book Astrophysics for People in a Hurry. So, if you’re in a hurry, I think that’s the right book to get, so I would recommend that. And even if you’re not in a hurry, I think it’s a good introduction to all things astrophysics. Another book that I like, if you like looking at the stars, the book that I used, there was an MIT course for observing. One of the books we had to learn the constellations, and I used that at NASA as well. It’s written by H.A. Rey, the guy that wrote “Curious George,” the monkey.

He wrote a book called The Stars and it talks about all the different constellations. But as far as what’s going on in astrophysics, I think Neil’s books are really good. I think Brian Greene is also another good author that writes some pretty cool stuff about what’s going on. He’s more in the mathematical bent of things but I would recommend anything by those two guys.

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

Mike Massimino
My favorite tool has to be a Leatherman. You can almost get anything done with a Leatherman.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. And a favorite habit, something you do that helps you be awesome at your job?

Mike Massimino
What I try to do is I try to appreciate where we are in the universe every day. I talked about looking at the planet earlier, I think, when we started. I think we talked about that, viewing the planet and how beautiful it is. I try to do something every day to appreciate our planet, whether it’s just even riding on the New York City subway, looking around at the faces around me, looking at the leaves on the trees, up at the clouds, stars at night, something. We’re living in an amazing place and I think we need to take a timeout at least once a day to just be amazed at how amazing this place is.

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?

Mike Massimino
When I was pursuing the astronaut job and got rejected all those times, we talked about the medical disqualification. What kept me going was the mathematical reality that things aren’t necessarily impossible as long as you try. And it might be one out of a million as your chances for success but that’s not zero.

One out of a million is a non-zero number. It’s 0.000 a lot of zeros and there’s a one at the end. And the only way that that one disappears, and you know your probability of success is zero and you will not succeed, is if you give up. Once you give up, it’s game over and your probability of success, you’re not going to be successful. So, I try to keep that in mind and I encourage people, and that’s been told to me as well as something that’s been helpful for people to think about. So, when you try to do something and you know it’s hard, and it might seem impossible, but as long as they try, one out of a million is not zero.

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

Mike Massimino
My website is probably a good place, MikeMassimino.com. You can reach out to me there. There’s a way to contact me through there if you’re interested in doing that. If they’re interested in following me around social media, I was the first guy to tweet from space, so I’m on Twitter @Astro_Mike now, or X now, AstroMikeMassimino on Instagram and Facebook, Michael Massimino on LinkedIn. Those are ways you can get hold of me there.

And if you’re interested in learning more about these things we’ve talked about, Pete, for the folks out there, if they’re interested and they’re either developing their moonshots or succeeding at their moonshots, whatever they’re trying to do in life, at work, or at home, these are things that I’ve learned that have helped me, and I’d love to share them with you, as we have today, but also in the book if they’re so inclined. And that can be purchased just about anywhere, wherever you buy your books, at your local bookstore, or Amazon, Barnes & Noble, whatever. It’s available there, Moonshot is available there.

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

Mike Massimino
Don’t give up. Embrace the challenge. Embrace change. Things are constantly changing. I talk about that, too, in the book, and knowing when to pivot. But embrace the challenges, embrace the change, remember you’re not in it alone, and don’t give up. If it’s tough, it means it’s worthwhile. Don’t give up.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. Mike, thank you. This has been a treat. And I wish you many more fun moonshots.

Mike Massimino
Thanks, Pete. You as well.

Nov 30
0

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

Thank you, Sponsors!

  • The Management Muse podcast. Sharpen your leadership skills with Cindi Baldi and Geoffrey Tumlin

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.

Nov 20
0

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

By | Podcasts | No Comments


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

Thank you, Sponsors!

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.

Nov 13
0

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.