Self-Awareness Archives - How to be Awesome at Your Job

Pete Mockaitis
Nir, welcome back.

Nir Eyal
Thanks, Pete. Great to be here.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, I’m excited to chat about your book, Beyond Belief. Beliefs, boy, I have found them to be powerful and I’ve heard them to be powerful, and I’m excited to have you sort out the myth from the fact and the science and bring some inspiration.

So could you maybe share with us, as you were doing your research for this book, any super surprising or fascinating discoveries, any maybe counterintuitive bits that you came across when it comes to us humans and belief?

Nir Eyal
Okay, let me take you back into the time machine of psychology history, back to the year 1950.

And Curt Richter, this researcher, takes a wild rat, and he wants to determine how long a wild rat can swim for. Fascinating stuff. It turns out, a wild rat in a cylinder of water will keep swimming for about 15 minutes before it gives up and drowns.

Nir Eyal
Then he decides to do a follow-up study. The follow-up study, he takes a wild rat, puts it in the same cylinder of water, and this time knowing that the rats will last an average 15 minutes, right before the 15-minute mark, he reaches in, takes out the wild rat, dries it off, lets it catch its breath, and plunk back into the cylinder it goes. And he does this a few times to condition the rat.

The question is, now that the rats have been conditioned, that salvation might be possible, that that magic hand might reach in and save the rat, how much longer did the rat swim for? Now we know it started 15 minutes, how much longer did the rat persist?

Pete Mockaitis
Nineteen minutes.

Nir Eyal
Nineteen minutes, not even close. Keep going.

Pete Mockaitis
Thirty minutes.

Nir Eyal
That would be amazing, double the perseverance. Would that be amazing if you could double? No, not even close. Keep going.

Pete Mockaitis
Sixty minutes.

Nir Eyal
Four times longer, can you imagine if you had an intervention that could help you run four times the marathon, persist on a big exam four times longer, stick with a hard task at work four times longer? That would be insane. That would be a miracle.

The rats didn’t swim for four times longer. They didn’t swim for 60 minutes. They swam, are you ready for this? They swam from 15 minutes, with that intervention, they now swam for 60 hours.

Pete Mockaitis
Sixty hours straight?

Nir Eyal
Sixty hours straight.

Pete Mockaitis
You got to eat! You got to drink!

Nir Eyal
Yeah, they became 240 times more persistent, okay? Why? What happened? We can’t ask the rats what they thought, but if we know their bodies didn’t change, the intervention happened, same rats, same bodies, and they didn’t become physically stronger, nothing changed with their environment, same cylinder of water.

The only variable left is that something changed in their brains. That, in fact, that 240 times more persistence, that 60 hours of swimming was always in them. They physically could always do it. It’s that something was unlocked in their brain that made that now possible.

And so that leads us to, what I’ve been working on the past six years, beliefs. That we can push beyond our limiting beliefs. That the rats that originally gave up when they didn’t know there was any other option, they just kind of gave up at 15 minutes, didn’t know that within them all along was 60 hours of perseverance.

And, of course, what’s the metaphor here? We are just like those rats. We have all these capabilities. We have no clue we are able to accomplish all these things we can do, but we limit ourselves because of our beliefs, because we think, “There’s nothing more to be done,” “I’m not good enough,” “I had this condition,” “I do this,” “I can’t do that,” “I’m too old,” “I’m too young,” “And there’s no time,” “The world sucks,” “Exercise is terrible,” whatever.

All these limiting beliefs we have that aren’t real. They’re not true. They just limit us. And so that was the study that I saw that I said, “Wow, I have to tell the world about this. It’s totally remarkable and that was incredibly surprising.”

Pete Mockaitis
Well, that’s wild. That’s wild and very intriguing and enticing. But, Nir, you know, I’ve had my heart broken before by rodent studies, they promised much that didn’t translate. So can you lay on us the most compelling human random control trial you’re aware of in this domain?

Nir Eyal
Yeah, I’ll give you another one. A group of athletes were told that there was a breakthrough steroid that is going to help them put on muscle with no side effects. And this study has been replicated many, many times. It was done back in the 1970s.

So a group of athletic men told, “Here’s a breakthrough steroid, unbelievably effective, go work out.” They gave another group – nothing. The control group, these men who were given the steroid put on significantly more muscle mass, like actually, they had more muscle, like they weighed more in terms of their muscle. They also became quite a bit stronger. They could lift more weight. They could do more pushups there. They got overall way, way more, way stronger.

It turns out that this magical steroid was nothing. It was a placebo, an inert substance. So placebos can help you put on muscle mass, it turns out. Now, is it through some magical intervention? Are your beliefs becoming your biology as some studies that we know about suggest? In this case, that was true, but not the way most people think.

When people think of placebos, they think there’s some kind of magical property to it. There’s some kind of pharmacy in your brain that just makes you live longer, etc. It’s not how it works. It is true that your beliefs can become your biology. But the path through that goes through behavior.

It turns out, when they tracked how much more effort did these men put into their workouts when they were taking the placebo steroid, they pushed a little bit harder, they did one more rep, they tacked on a little bit more weight, because they believed, “Hey, I’m on this steroid, I should be stronger,” and they, therefore, became stronger because of it.

So this is super important. There isn’t some magical power to placebos. It’s, in fact, a technique we can use on ourselves to help us accomplish the things that we didn’t know we could do, but it’s not magic, it’s behavior.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. Well, that’s intriguing. And I want to have all kinds of techniques, but maybe let’s zoom out and give us what’s the main big idea or thesis of your book here, Beyond Belief?

Nir Eyal
That beliefs are tools, not truths, and we can use them just like a tool, that when we have the right tools, we can build amazing things. So let’s differentiate between what is a belief, what is a fact, what is faith. Fact is an objective truth, it’s something that is true whether you believe it or not. The world is more like a sphere than it is flat. It is what it is.

Then you have faith. Faith are matters, these are convictions that do not require evidence, “What happens after you die?” “God rewards the righteous.” These are matters of faith. These things do not require evidence. Then there are things in the middle that we call beliefs.

Beliefs are convictions that are open to revision based on new evidence. And most of our big decisions in life are not based on fact because we don’t know what’s going to happen in the future. We have to have our best guess, “What job should I take?” “Who should I marry?” “What city should I live in?”

These questions, they’re not based on fact or faith. They’re based on belief, convictions that are open to revision based on new evidence. But here’s the kicker. Even though most of our decisions in life are based on beliefs, most of us believe really stupid stuff.

We have these convictions that, to us, feel like facts and we can’t see for ourselves that they are actually hidden, limiting beliefs. It’s almost like your face, that we all carry around a face, but you can’t see your own face. You can see other people’s faces.

Just like if I said, “Hey, think of someone you know very well, someone you’re close to, what’s their limiting belief?” “Oh, in a second, I can tell you what that person’s limiting belief is if I know them pretty well.” But when it comes to ourselves, uh-uh, we don’t know what our limiting beliefs are because we think they’re facts, they’re hidden to us by design. Because the brain has what’s called an immunity to change.

We hate changing our beliefs because the brain wants to default into passivity. Another very surprising result. You’ve heard of learned helplessness?

That, over time, if you can’t do something, it started with animal studies where they did terrible things to dogs and figured this out. But they say now with humans as well that you learn helplessness. You learn to give up. If you can’t, can’t, can’t, you eventually don’t even try.

This was gospel in the psychology community until the very authors who ran those studies and came up with the term learned helplessness, just a few years ago, decided that their conclusion was completely wrong. In fact, it was the opposite. That we don’t learn helplessness. Helplessness is our default state.

That we always want to retreat into safety. We always wanted to retreat into our previous beliefs. We always want to go back to what we currently know and think we know, because that’s what kept us safe in the past, and so that’s what’s going to keep us safe in the future. That’s our default state. We don’t learn helplessness, we are all helpless.

Think about a little baby when they’re first born, they’re completely helpless. They’re dependent on others. We’re always, by default, helpless. What we have to learn is agency. We have to learn hope. And that’s exactly what those rats learned.

Originally, in that Richter study, they were helpless. They gave up after 15 minutes. They weren’t exhausted, they just gave up. But when they had learned that something might save them, salvation might be possible, they persisted. And so that’s something that I think is incredibly important to realize, that we have far more agency than we think because we can actually shape our beliefs.

We don’t have to accept our beliefs as default. It’s almost like a carpenter doesn’t say, “Oh, you know, one time, I used a hammer and it was very effective. So hammers, hammers are the one and only true tool forevermore.” No, a carpenter says, “Hey, sometimes I use a hammer, sometimes I use a saw, sometimes I use a screwdriver.” They find the right tool for the job.

So most of our problems in life, personal problems, interpersonal relationship problems at work, and even geopolitical problems come from the fact that far too many people don’t realize that the things that they think are facts are nothing more than beliefs.

And so if we realize that, we can actually shape our beliefs to live better, to make the world a better place, to reduce our suffering.

Pete Mockaitis
Could you maybe give us the top five hidden limiting beliefs that show up all over the place in all kinds of people and cause all kinds of limitation?

Nir Eyal
Sure, I’d be happy to. Just curious, can you think of any that you have? Anything come to mind?

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, that I have.

Nir Eyal
I’ll give you the number one. I’ll give you the number one. What do think it is, by the way? What do think the number one limiting belief that I hear is?

Pete Mockaitis
Well, I think, in terms of the destruction, I’m thinking, “Oh, I’m unlovable,” or, “I’m not good enough,” or, “I’m not worthy.”

Nir Eyal
That’s too serious. Those are all limiting beliefs. Those are really hidden. Very few people will say, “Oh, I’m not lovable,” but, yeah, they can act as if that’s true. Number one, “I don’t have enough time.”

Pete Mockaitis
Okay.

Nir Eyal
Right? Everybody thinks that, “Well, of course, I don’t have enough time. We’re busy, busy, busy, busy.” What are you talking about? Not enough time for what? The human race is 200,000 years old. The earth is billions of years old. Zoom out. You got time.

It’s just that your priorities are different, that you have a limiting belief that, “I have to be stressed.” It’s a limiting belief that I have to accomplish more than I am. Because all these limiting beliefs, they create suffering. Well, I didn’t define it. What is the difference between a limiting belief and a liberating belief?

A limiting belief decreases motivation and increases suffering. A liberating belief is a belief that increases motivation and decreases suffering. And it turns out, once we evaluate these limiting versus liberating beliefs, we can choose, we can take them out for size.

So these limiting beliefs come from the fact that we expect things to be different. We expect to accomplish all this stuff and we can’t or we don’t and so, therefore, we suffer. But that’s a limiting belief. It’s just a perception problem.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. All right. So “I don’t have time” is a big one. Give us a couple more.

Nir Eyal
Yeah, “She always acts that way,” or, “That’s so like him,” right? You see that one a lot with interpersonal relationships, especially, in the workplace, when it comes to people we work with, “That’s just who they are.” It turns out, we don’t see reality clearly. This is a really, really important point.

So let me explain the three powers of belief so we could dive deeper into how to get rid of these limiting beliefs. There’s three powers of our beliefs. Beliefs shape what we see. We call this the power of attention, beliefs shape what we feel, We call this the power of anticipation. And beliefs shape what we do. We call this the power of agency.

And so, it turns out that the reason beliefs are, why do we even have these beliefs? How do they shape what we see, feel and do so dramatically? It’s because, fundamentally, the brain cannot process reality. None of us see reality clearly.

That’s probably the biggest limiting belief, is that you think you know what happened. You think you see reality clearly. You don’t see reality clearly. You don’t feel reality clearly. None of that. Why? Because the brain is processing for every second, 11 million bits of information.

Eleven million bits of information, to put that in perspective, that’s like reading War and Peace every second, twice. It’s a tremendous amount of information. The light entering your retinas, the sound of my voice in your ears, the ambient temperature of the room, your brain is collecting all this data. However, your conscious perception is only processing 50 bits of information, 50 versus 11 million.

So that means that you are aware of 0.000045% of what’s actually happening in reality. And you think you can take someone else’s perspective and think you know what they’re thinking and feeling? No, you have no clue. You’re barely processing your own version of reality.

So what this means is that, based on this keyhole of attention that we’re all looking through, the brain has to create a simulation because it can’t process what’s happening. So it’s creating a simulation of what it expects to…?

Pete Mockaitis
Happen.

Nir Eyal
Perfect. How did you know I was going to say that? Because of your priors, your prior experiences, what happened in your childhood, what happened yesterday, what happened in the past. That is what decides what you will perceive in the future. Those are called our priors.

What are priors? They are based on our beliefs. So we see reality, feel reality, and act in reality based on what we believe. That’s our perceptual filter that we can look through. But the problem is, of course, we keep using the same perceptual filters, whether or not they serve us because in the past they did.

And so that’s why it’s so important to be aware of, “Hey, can I swap the bad beliefs, the ones that don’t serve me, that limit me for the ones that liberate me?”

Pete Mockaitis
I see. And that’s why we’re able to finish each other’s…

Nir Eyal
Sandwiches, right?

Pete Mockaitis
Sandwiches. Oh, wow, Nir, I didn’t think…Oh, that was magical.

Nir Eyal
I have a daughter, too. I’ve seen “Frozen” 110 times.

Pete Mockaitis
It’s a joke, but I think it also illustrates the notion that if you have had those experiences of watching the “Frozen” movie or wherever they employ that joke, finish each other’s sandwiches, then you’ll say sandwiches. But if you haven’t, it’s just like, “Sentences,” that’s what gets finished.

Nir Eyal
It’s a beautiful illustration. That’s exactly right. That the brain perceives what it expects.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. Well, I’d love to dig into how we can reshape these, but maybe could you tell us really what’s possible, in terms of an inspiring story of a person who noticed some of these things that you highlighted and they said, “Uh-oh, I got to take some action,” and they reshaped it and what happened?

Nir Eyal
Sure, I’ll give you an example of a famous person who was duped into being better and how did this happen. So this is a story of Serena Williams, and this really happened, at Wimbledon one year. And she was having a really tough go at it that year, that she was not performing at her best, and she started to psych herself out. She was capable of more.

And her coach, Patrick, knew this, and so he saw that she was not performing well because, principally, she was not rushing the net. And in tennis, if you hesitate for even a microsecond, you’re going to lose the point. And he saw that this was happening to Serena because she was doubting herself, and so he wanted to break that belief.

So what did he do? He goes up to her, and he says, “I have some amazing news. I was just looking at the statistics and I saw that, when you rush the net, you score 80% of the points.” And she said, “What are you crazy? I thought I was sucking at the net. I thought I was doing terrible with the net.”

He says, “Well, you know what, the statistics are with the statistics are. That’s what it says. So, you know, this is the best news of the day, 80% of the points, just rush the net. You’re doing great.” It turns out this was a complete lie. A total lie. But it was a productive deception.

Now that she has that new belief, even though it was false, it wasn’t true, it was useful. Beliefs are tools, not truths. And so now she began to behave differently about what she would do in the future. Maybe in the past, that was a fact, but the future is not a fact. It hasn’t happened yet. So she used her beliefs as tools, not truths, and turns out, she wins Wimbledon that year.

Now, I’m not saying go lie to people and that’s going to make them better. What her coach was doing was he knew her potential. He knew what was in there already. So if you go tell somebody, “You’re really good at something,” that they’re just not good at, it’s not going to work.

But when someone is actually good at something, just like those rats who had those 60 hours in them before the experiment, they just needed them unlocked, that’s what this productive deception actually did. And so we can actually do this in our own lives.

When you think about how people use totems or placebos or potions, whether they work or not, maybe it doesn’t matter. What matters is that they are effective. So sometimes these productive deceptions can be very, very useful.

I mean, think about branding. What the heck is branding? It’s just a productive deception. And you think, “Oh, but that’s like marketing, you know, BS.” No, in fact, there was a wonderful study where they took people and put them in an fMRI machine. An fMRI machine tracks blood flow in the brain so we can see what areas of the brain are most active.

They put them in this machine and they give them a little tube in their mouth. And in that tube, they send a squirt of wine and they say, “Okay, we want to see how you like this wine. Here is a cheap bottle of wine, maybe it’s $5 or so. What do you think of this wine?”

And people in the fMRI machine who were tasting the wine said, “Oh, you know what, this wine is okay, it’s a little flat, nothing special. Eh, it’s okay.” Then they said, “Okay, now we’re going to give you a very expensive bottle of wine, Chateau des…” something, something, “Here you go, try this wine.” “Oh,” they reported, “this is a very tasty wine. I taste hints of oak and berry and…” all kinds of the things that the wine snobs say.

You know, there’s a trick coming. The trick is it’s the same wine. But their perception of the price changed not only what they said they experienced, it’s not that they were lying, they actually, in their brain, we could see that blood flow was measuring more intensely in the pleasure centers of their brain. They were actually perceiving that wine that was more expensive as better because of this expectation, because of their belief that expensive wine should be better.

So marketing, in many cases, we’ve misunderstood. We think that advertising is about telling people about your product. That’s the simple definition, actually. That’s the simple version. Really, what advertising does is that it informs how you will experience the product itself. It shapes an expectation. It incepts an expectation so that you actually experience the product as more superior.

Take headphones, for example. I know you’re an audiophile. You’ve got all kinds of headphones. Studies have found that between $100 headphones and $1,000 headphones, people can’t tell the difference, not at that quality level when we do random studies. And yet, when they know the price of the headphones, they rate the qualities better, right? Even if it’s not.

Pete Mockaitis
Yes. You know, Nir, you’re making so many connections for me. One with wine and marketing, and Seth Godin’s book, All Marketers Are Liars, he talks about the Riedel glasses, which is a fancy wine glass. And so they tell a story about how, with its properties of scents and geometry, it enhances the wine flavor, dah, dah, dah. And likewise, in sort of blind tests, it does not.

But when people believe that it does, it does. And I’ve had that experience. I’ve used those glasses. They feel very nice. And I think, “Ooh, yeah, this really is enhancing the experience.” And so it’s intriguing in that there’s nothing intrinsic about the glass that is doing that. And Seth’s point is it’s not that the marketers are really shady, terrible people. They are giving us a better experience because they’re telling us the story and we are enriched from it.

And with regard to audio, I kid you not, one time I was working with a super duper audio engineer trying to get my sound dialed in. And he said, “You really need this device.” It was this clunky thousand-dollar cast iron thing. I was like, “I mean, okay, dude, I’ll give it a shot.” And so I was like, “But it’s going right back. I’m not spending that money if no one could tell the difference.”

And so I did an elaborate blind listening test, including with the super audio engineer, Conan O’Brien stole him from me. No big deal. This audio engineer, I had him and some other folks listen to all these samples with the fancy piece and then the normal piece, and they really were indistinguishable, despite all the ooing and aahing, and he was like, “Oh, it gives your voice this just thick, heavy, rich, solid sound.”

I was like, “Well, apparently you couldn’t hear it when I obscured the names of the things.” So it really does show up in all kinds of places.

Nir Eyal
Yeah, and the natural gut reaction is, “Oh, it’s deception.” But actually, what’s the point? The point of this stuff is to enjoy it more, right? So maybe spending a few extra bucks, if that’s the goal, right? Here’s another good example, that when golfers were told that a putter was used by a famous celebrity golfer, right, like, “This putter was used by Tiger Woods,” or something, I don’t know who they used, they golf better. They actually performed better in their golf game, right?

So it can actually have some kind of actual effect on your performance as well. So maybe we should give a chance to these placebos. Maybe they’re far more powerful than we think. Again, no magic here, but if that’s what we’re paying for, if we’re paying for perception, if we’re paying for performance, maybe it’s worth it. And the nice thing is that placebos don’t have to just come in terms of products.

We know that we can have similar effects by changing our beliefs. So, for example, there’s an amazing study that was done at Yale a few years ago, where they found that people who have positive views about aging, okay, what is a positive view about aging? Something like, “Growth is possible at any age,” versus a negative view of aging, someone who says, “Aging involves inevitable decline.”

Now, which one is true? They’re both true, right? But someone who’s first to mind reaction is, “Oh, I’m having a senior moment. Those aches and pains is because I’m getting old,” what are they more likely to do? How are they more likely to live? They’re more likely to limit themselves and do fewer healthy behaviors.

And so, when we talk about what affects lifespan, smoking, what you eat, exercise, beliefs blow all of those out of the water. That people in this study, people who have positive views about aging at age 30, lived seven and a half years longer. Seven and a half years longer is off the charts. That is more than the effect of smoking, more than the effect of exercise, more than the effect of what you eat. But we never hear about that.

We think about blue zones and you have to eat this, olive oil, that, matcha, this, all these fancy, fancy things that you’re supposed to do. It turns out, having a positive view of aging is the best thing you can do to increase your lifespan. Again, it’s not that your beliefs become your biology, it’s that your beliefs create behaviors that then change your biology.

So these are very simple things that any of us can do. Stop telling yourself these limiting beliefs. Stop telling yourself, “I’m not a morning person.” Because, you know what, when you tell yourself you’re not a morning person, guess what, you’re not.

Stop telling yourself that you’re limited by your labels. Don’t say them out loud. Don’t say them to others. There’s no purpose for it, even if you think it’s true, even if there is some kind of basis. For example, I was tested for ADHD.

Pete Mockaitis
Me, too.

Nir Eyal
And for years I would say to myself, “Oh, there’s my ADHD, there it goes again.” Now, what was I doing while I was thinking about my stupid ADHD? I was not thinking about the thing that I was supposed to be thinking about.

So it became this trap that I had built for myself, versus a much more positive belief is that, “Hey, this is a new skill I’m learning. You know, maybe it wasn’t my ADHD.” Now it doesn’t mean ADHD isn’t real. It might be real, but we’re not arguing about the facts here. We’re not arguing about truth. We’re arguing about belief. What was causing me to get distracted in that moment?

It could also be that I just haven’t learned a skill to stay focused. Okay, maybe I’m starting a bit behind other people, but I don’t want to think to myself that I’m limited in this way. It’s not helpful. So I can do away with that limiting belief and instead adopt a much healthier liberating belief.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, yeah, and then you can have your beliefs associated with the supplements or the medications therein, which would likewise have impact. So I’m curious, if we have spotted a belief like, “I don’t have time. I don’t have enough time,” and we really do believe it, just like, “Nir, I mean, straight up, just take a look at this list and take a look at this calendar, like, straight up, there just is not enough time,” what does one do to rejigger that?

Nir Eyal
So the first thing we do is we take out that belief, and we recognize that the last thing our brain wants to do is to prove it false. We hate it. Hate it, hate it, hate it, okay? So acknowledging that, we thank our brain and say, “Thanks, brain. I’m going to put that on pause for a minute and I’m going to explore an alternative perspective to collect a portfolio of perspectives,” right?

You don’t have to change your mind. You don’t have to believe something different. You don’t have to tell yourself myths. You just want to create other perspectives and explore whether they also might be true. So for example, let’s take, is this a limiting belief of yours, by the way, that there’s not enough time? What’s a real limiting belief you have?

Pete Mockaitis
I mean, it comes up semi often.

Nir Eyal
Okay, let’s take this one then, okay, “There’s not enough time.” Now what we want to do, and this is a technique offered by Byron Katie that I admire quite a bit. And she actually channeled this technique. This is all the way back from Aristotle. And what she does is she asks us these four questions. So the first question is, “Is this belief true? Is it true, ‘I don’t have enough time’?”

Pete Mockaitis
Well, I mean, it can be neither true nor false. From a strict logic perspective, it can be neither true nor false, because we have not defined what does that even mean. Like you said earlier, enough for what?

Nir Eyal
Good point. Good point. Okay, so let’s go to question number two, which you’ve kind of started to answer  already, “Is it absolutely true? Can we find any definition, any situation, any scenario where ‘I don’t have enough time’ is not true?”

Pete Mockaitis
Certainly.

Nir Eyal
Certainly, of course. Okay, let’s go to the third question, “Who am I when I believe that? How do I feel? How do I act? What kind of person am I when I hold onto that belief that there is not enough time?”

Pete Mockaitis
Just kind of stressed and rushed and frazzled and error-prone.

Nir Eyal
Yeah, a great point, “I don’t do good work when I feel like I don’t have enough time.” Great point. Okay, final fourth question, we’re kind of rushing this here, but just for the sake of demonstration, “Who would I be without that belief?” If I had a magic wand, here’s my magic wand, I’m going to tap you on the head. You no longer have that belief. How do you feel?

Pete Mockaitis
Well, I feel relieved and free, but also a little scared, like, “Uh-oh, I hope I don’t accidentally, like, way overdo something,” because I get in a groove or a flow and be like, “Oh, shoot, I got to pick up my kids, arghh,” you know, so I feel liberated and a little spooked.

Nir Eyal
Okay, great. So now we’re going to do the turnaround. So what did we just discover with those four questions? We discovered that that belief that felt really true a minute ago, maybe it’s not true, that holding onto the belief doesn’t feel very good, doesn’t make you enjoy your life. It seems like it increases suffering. And if we got rid of it, there might be some benefits, not a hundred percent, but maybe there are some benefits to getting rid of that belief and trying on a different belief.

So now we do the turnaround. We take that statement that we are absolutely sure is true, “Look at my calendar, there’s no time, clearly,” and we ask ourselves to consider the exact opposite, to do a turnaround. And this technique of a turnaround is way underutilized. It can be utilized in business, it can be utilized in relationships, it can be utilized to bring yourself greater peace and awareness, and just to see reality more clearly.

Again, we’re not changing our mind. We’re just collecting a portfolio of perspectives to choose from. So what’s the opposite of “I don’t have enough time”?

Pete Mockaitis
“I have ample time.”

Nir Eyal
“I have ample time.” Give me one way that might be true.

Pete Mockaitis
I sleep as much as my body allows me to.

Nir Eyal
Okay, great. Somebody else might say, “Actually, I watch TV. I scroll on social media. So if I really didn’t have time, would I be able to do those things? No, I actually have time.” Or another person might say, “You know what? I have time for the things I care about. You know, like I spend time with my kids. That’s non-negotiable.”

Or somebody else might say, “I spend a lot of time at work. That’s non-negotiable. So I do have time for the things I care about,” could be a possible way that’s true. Can you think of any others that might apply to you or any other turnarounds, any other way you could take, “I don’t have time,” and you could turn that around, like, “I do have time for…” blank?

Pete Mockaitis
Well, yeah, I mean, I think I kind of already said it. It’s like, I do have time for the things that truly matter, necessary, worthwhile, leveraged, you know, life-giving. I mean, yeah, that just is what it is.

Nir Eyal
Yeah. How does that feel when you try that on for size that, “I do have time for the things I care about”? How does your body feel right now?

Pete Mockaitis
Well, yes, it’s a better groove, you know. Kind of breathing a little easier, a little less tension in some belly and such.

Nir Eyal
Yeah, so that’s a very quick and dirty example of how you can collect that portfolio and see and try it on for size. Let me tell you where it changed my life. I had an interaction with my mom a few years ago. It was her 74th birthday, and I wanted to do something nice for her. So I wanted to get her some flowers. The problem was, I was in Singapore and she was in Central Florida where I grew up.

So that’s a bit of a challenge, but I called a bunch of florists. I made sure the delivery went out on time. I wanted to make sure that they, you know, didn’t burn in the Florida heat. And I stayed up till 1:00 a.m. and I patted myself on the back and I said, “Oh, Nir, you’re a good son. You did something nice for your mom.”

I went to bed, slept well, called her the next morning and said, “Hey, mom, happy birthday. Did you get my flowers?” To which she said, “I did. Thank you very much. But just so you know, I got them and they’re half dead. So don’t use that florist anymore.” To which I reacted and said something to the effect of, “Well, that’s the last time I ever buy you flowers,” which I later regretted, and that went over about as well as you’d expect.

Now, after the call, my wife turned to me and she said, “Do you want to do a turnaround on this?” To which I said, “No, I do not want to do any of your hocus pocus, touchy feely nonsense. I need to vent,” because that’s what we’re all told. You’re supposed to vent, you’re supposed to get your feelings out, you’re supposed to tell people how you really feel.

But I knew enough at that point, doing this research, that venting does not work, that venting does nothing but solidify this patina that we have around people, this effigy that we build about people, because we don’t see people as they are. We see people as we are. We see them through our beliefs, which is why we treat our family members very differently from how we treat strangers.

So I did not want to vent, because I knew it, I held myself back, I should say, from venting, because I knew that was not going to be helpful. And I did this exact exercise, I asked these four questions.

I wrote down the belief, “My mother is too judgmental and hard to please,” obviously, right? Question number one is a stupid question, “Is it true?” Yeah, obviously. Go to question two, “Is it true? Is it absolutely true that she’s too judgmental and hard to please?” Well, maybe. I mean, there might be possibly a 1% chance that that didn’t happen the way I saw it. Maybe there’s another perspective. Fine.

Question number three, “Who am I when I hold onto this belief?” I’m not really myself, right? I’m short tempered. I regret what I later said, right? So that wasn’t really serving me. And then, finally, the fourth question, “Who would I be without that belief?” If I could do away with that belief that my mother is too judgmental and hard to please, I’d be nicer. I’d be more patient. I’d be more myself.

So, A, that belief that I was absolutely sure was true, it turns out maybe it’s not true. It doesn’t really serve me and I’d be much better off without it. Now I could do my own turnaround. Okay, my turnaround number one, “My mother is not too judgmental and hard to please.”

How could that possibly be true? Is there even one way that could be true? Well, she did thank me, so maybe she was just trying to help me by making sure that I don’t get scammed by this florist. It could be. Now, is that true? Is it not true? I don’t know. It’s okay. It’s another perspective.

Here’s another turnaround, “I am too judgmental and hard to please.” Could that be true? Not “My mother is too judgmental and hard to please,” I am too judgmental and hard to please. That could also be true, right, because I had scripted this exact response of effusive praise that I was expecting from my mother, and when it didn’t come, I lost it. So who was being judgmental? Me, because I didn’t get the thanks I needed.

Now there’s a fourth, another turn around, a fourth belief, “I am too judgmental and hard to please towards myself.” Yeesh, that’s no fun. What does that mean? Well, the more I thought about it, when something didn’t happen the way I expected it to happen, I thought it was a statement on myself that I was not competent for not buying the right flowers, and so I was judging myself very harshly.

And because of that, there’s what’s called a misattribution of emotion. That when we feel crummy, we look for the first face in front of us and that’s the face we’re going to punch, verbally or physically. And that’s what I did. So now which one of those four beliefs is right? We started with “My mother is too judgmental and hard to please,” we came up with three other perspectives, three other beliefs. Which one is right? Which one is wrong? Which one is true? Which one is false? Who cares?

I tell you what, that first belief gave me only one way to happiness, only one way to peace. She had to apologize so I could feel better. She had to change her behavior so I could change how I felt inside. That ain’t going to happen, right? Stop expecting people to change. It’s not going to happen. The other three perspectives I could do something with.

So in any interpersonal conflict, whether it’s in the home with our families or in the workplace, taking on that portfolio of perspectives, you don’t have to agree with it, you don’t have to change your mind about anything, but you can collect that portfolio of perspectives about any of your limiting beliefs and try them on for size, just like glasses, right?

You try on somebody else’s glasses and things are blurry, they don’t look right. You try on the right prescription, “Oh, things look better. Things look more clear.” And so the idea here is that by trying on those different perspectives, you can pick the ones that serve you best, that help reduce suffering, that bring you closer together to people and improve your life.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, that’s great. Thank you. And so this rigorous question, consideration, turnaround approach is powerful. I’m curious if there are any other power tools in your toolkit for working with these beliefs?

Nir Eyal
When it comes to rumination, you know, we get into this cycle of when we mess up and we do something that we later regret. “Oh, why did I do that? Why did I say it that way? What did he mean when he said that?” You know, we ruminate again and again and again.

It turns out, one of the best things you can do is to make time in your schedule to worry, that the solution to rumination is actually scheduling worry time. So when I get in that loop of, “Oh, what if this doesn’t work out? Maybe I said this wrong or whatever,” saying, “Okay, I write down that thing I’m worried about, that thing that I’m ruminating on, and then I have time in my schedule, like literally worry time scheduled where I will get back to it.”

Now why is this so powerful? The reason the brain keeps ruminating about a thought is because it doesn’t know when it’s going to have another time to solve it. It keeps thinking and thinking, it becomes an intrusive thought because if not now, then when? But, amazingly, when you give the brain time to worry later, it can relax. It’s like, “Okay, I wrote this down. I will schedule time with myself to worry about it.”

Now here’s where the magic happens. Number one, you stop ruminating. Two, when that time comes to worry about it, nine times out of 10, “What was I worrying about again? Why did that matter so much? What’s the big deal?” And so you benefit twice.

Another technique is called illeism. Illeism is when you talk to yourself in the third person. It’s not about cheesy affirmations. Affirmations don’t really work because they tend to affirm things that are not true. So just telling yourself it’s true doesn’t really work. But, Ilism, talking to yourself in the third person, has been shown to be very, very effective.

So instead of saying, “I’m terrible at this,” or, “I’m no good at public speaking,” or, “I’m not a morning person,” or, “I’m this or that.” Rather, if you can actually insert your name, so, “Pete is working on his public speaking,” “Pete is getting better at this task,” “Pete is challenged by this.” It’s amazing.

When you can talk to yourself in the third person, what it allows you to do is to give yourself advice as if you were in the third person. So by giving yourself what’s called self-compassion, it turns out that self-compassion, studies have found, is a defining trait of people who are more likely to meet their long-term goals.

So if you can talk to yourself the way you can talk to a good friend, it’s amazing, when a friend comes to you and says, “Hey, I have this problem.” “Oh, I’m full of good advice. Let me tell you exactly what you should do.” But when it comes to our own problems, we’re really challenged by this because we can’t see past our beliefs.

And so using this third-person technique, talking to yourself as if you were your own friend, which you should be, can actually uncover and unlock a lot of these hidden truths.

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, beautiful. Thank you. Well, now let’s hear about some of your favorite things. Could you kick us off with a favorite quote, something you find inspiring?

Nir Eyal
This actually comes from the Talmud, which is that, “You don’t see things as they are. You see things as you are.”

Pete Mockaitis
All right. And a favorite book?

Nir Eyal
I really enjoyed Rory Sutherland’s book Alchemy. I thought that was a fantastic read.

Pete Mockaitis
And is there a key nugget you share that audiences really eat up, they retweet, they Kindle book highlight, they say, “Wow, Nir, this was awesome”?

Nir Eyal
What I would want people to recognize and re-share is that beliefs are tools, not truths.

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

Nir Eyal
Yeah, so my website is NirAndFar.com. Nir spelled like my first name, that’s N-I-R , AndFar.com.

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

Nir Eyal
Yeah, I think the best thing we can do is to recognize that we don’t see reality clearly, we don’t feel reality as it is, and we are capable of doing so much more than we know.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. Nir, thank you.

Nir Eyal
My pleasure. Thank you, Pete.

Pete Mockaitis
Pat, welcome back!

Patrick Lencioni
It’s great to be back with you. It’s been a while.

Pete Mockaitis
It has, yes, and we both moved to Tennessee since we chatted last.

Patrick Lencioni
Isn’t that crazy? Yeah, one less family in Illinois and one less family in California. And here we are.

Pete Mockaitis
That’s right. Well, it is, it’s icy out, but, hopefully, you have some hot insights – no pressure – to drop here. We’re talking about Working Genius, but first I wanted to zoom way out and hear what’s one of the most surprising and fascinating discoveries you’ve made about us humans and how we work together well from all of your work with consulting and researching and writing?

Patrick Lencioni
Wow! I think that one of the things I’ve realized is that the root of all sin is pride, and the antidote to pride is humility. And humility is the key ingredient to relationships, and teams, and individual growth, and relationships. I think you know of an author named Matthew Kelly, probably. He used to say, “Humility is the most attractive quality in the world.” And I believe that.

When you meet somebody, like, “Man, they ooze humility,” and you can’t fake that, because then it wouldn’t be real. Because to be around somebody that’s humble, and in the workplace, people that are humble, people are like, “I want to listen to them. I want to follow them.”

And so, I think that everything we do At The Table group seems to be rooted, ultimately, in humility.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, that’s juicy. Let’s dig in a little bit more. So what specifically do you mean by humility? How do you define it? How do you know it when you see it?

Patrick Lencioni
I’m glad you asked because it’s not being self-deprecating around the things that you’re good at. Humility is about truth. So there are some people who go, “That person is really humble. They never think they’re right. They’re always putting themselves down.” That’s not humility.

Humility is, “I know what I’m good at. I know what I’m not good at. I’m just as capable of talking about both of those. I know who I am. I know what other people are great at, and I celebrate them.” And so, it’s like this recognition of what is true and good. And C.S. Lewis said, “Humility isn’t thinking less of yourself. It’s just thinking about yourself less.”

Pete Mockaitis
Okay, yeah, that’s good. And I’m thinking about, in leadership contexts when some folks, it seems like they’re uncomfortable acknowledging that someone else is right and they are wrong. You mentioned humble people are very attractive to follow. I’m thinking about some of my favorite experiences in following people are when we’re just having a meeting, we’re just going through some things, some ideas, they propose an option, I propose an option.

And one of my favorite phrases to hear from a leader is, “Hmm, I like your way better.”

Patrick Lencioni
Oh, absolutely.

Pete Mockaitis
Because, well, one, it just feels good, like, “Ooh, oh, I feel affirmed, validated, smart, I scored some points.” And, two, it’s humble at the same time. They acknowledge, “Hey, I had an idea, you had an idea. And this time I like yours better, and I’m comfortable and humble and strong enough to own that. As opposed to feeling the need to somehow make your idea mine, to somehow subtly point out all the risks,” or, “Okay, maybe let’s give your thing a shot.” Like, that feels much less edifying and enjoyable.

Patrick Lencioni
And, you know, I think the contrapositive of that, or the corollary to that, is people who also will say, “Oh, no, that was my bad.” When they make a mistake and they go, “Oh, no, I fully own that.”

Pete Mockaitis
Totally, yes.

Patrick Lencioni
One of the other definitions of humility I heard, I don’t know who said this, I have to look it up, but it said, “Humility is like standing next to a cathedral and being just as proud of it as though you had built it yourself.” Like, I didn’t have to do that and I can still say, “Oh, look how beautiful that is. Somebody else did this. I didn’t, I couldn’t, and I’m so happy that somebody else could do that,” rather than, like, “Well, what does it say about me that I didn’t or couldn’t?”

Pete Mockaitis
Yeah, oh, totally. Well, we’ll go just a little further there before we talk Working Genius. When it comes to humility, I’m thinking of, now we had Amy Edmondson on the show, and we were talking about psychological safety. And so, there’s some research which shows that that’s a real big deal.

Patrick Lencioni
Which is not what people think it is. I love that about her.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, yeah, I want to get your take on that in terms of teams working together effectively, psychological safety is huge. And the more I reflect on that, the more I think about humility and virtue, in general, seems to be absolutely critical to have that, both as the giver of saying of things that can feel unsafe to the hearer, and the hearer, you know, feeling unsafe by what they’ve just heard, offense or defensively, however everyone think about that.

It seems like you really got to have a lot of virtue and psychological mental health for psychological safety to be a reality because any number of things can feel unsafe.

Patrick Lencioni
Yes, and if being disagreed with or not affirmed in something makes you psychologically unsafe, that’s not something that the team has to do or the leader. Like, a person who needs to be agreed with or protected from responsibility for their own actions or positions on things, that’s not psychological safety.

And I love that about her, because people kind of hijack psychological safety, and says, “Nobody can ever be offended for being disagreed with.” Like, you said, that guy that said to you, “Hey, no, I like your idea better.” Or if he said, “Oh, no, I think your idea, that’s not a good idea.” Both of those should be psychologically safe.

Pete Mockaitis
Yes. And so, could you speak to what are the vibes, the elements, the things going on within a team such that folks can hear that, “No, your idea is not going to work,” and that’s totally cool?

Patrick Lencioni
Right. I think it gets back to humility, and it also gets back to what you know about yourself. Do you know what you’re good at and what you’re not good at? And one of the things that makes a person really struggle in work is when they don’t know their defects, and they’re not even defects, they’re shortcomings and everybody’s got them.

When they can’t go, “Oh, here’s my idea, but I’m not really good at thinking this way, so if I’m wrong, it’s probably understandable.” When a person actually tries to be good at something they’re not good at and you have to protect them from realizing that they’re not good at that, that’s a terrible thing for a team. And it’s a very low ceiling for a person in their career.

The best people in jobs are the ones that know their strengths and use them, and they know their weaknesses and they’re not afraid to highlight those. And so psychological safety has to be a person that’s willing to acknowledge their weaknesses as well as their strengths.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. And then I’m also thinking just about like a woundedness, you know, like some things are just a real sore spot for folks, and it may not be sensible, rational, true. And yet, that’s there, it’s like, “Ooh, you just hit something.”

Patrick Lencioni
Yeah, and, essentially, I’m doing some work around this right now. When people have wounds and they’re not aware of them, it throws everything off.

Because you can look at a person’s Myers-Briggs or their Working Genius or their typology, whatever it is, but that doesn’t explain everything. There’s also virtues that they choose to exercise, and wounds that they have that they either have worked on or they’re not aware of.

You can’t understand a person completely just by understanding their types. You have to also understand these other things that factor into it. And wounds are the big one that I’m realizing that really make it hard to understand somebody, because if they don’t understand their wounds, they don’t understand why they’re not being true to their self.

And I know that sounds very complex, but I’ve discovered my wounds in the last five years of my life in a deep way. And, man, has it been a godsend to go, “Oh, I never realized that happened to me. I just need to go now come to terms with this and work on it so I can actually be the person I’m meant to be.”

Pete Mockaitis
Certainly. And not to put you on the spot, but when we say the word wounds, could you give a couple examples of things that tend to pop up, kind of often, and really do have an impact on individual, professional, and team effectiveness at work?

Patrick Lencioni
Yeah, so a lot of high achievers, one of the reasons why they work hard or strive to be successful is because they’re operating out of their wounds, and they’ve turned their wounds into superpowers, if you will. In other words, “Oh, I have to be perfect,” or, “I have to please others,” or, “I have to achieve. I have to prove that I’m good at this.”

And while that is something you get rewarded for in life, ultimately, you’re not getting the peace you want because we should be working out of joy and love and desire to do good, not fear and worry and running from the possibility of failure.

And I think there’s more people that are successful because they’re afraid to fail than the other. And people are looking at them, going, “Well, you don’t have too big of a problem because you’re doing well in your career.” And they’re like, “Yeah, but you don’t understand. Every day I wake up and go, ‘Is today the day I’m going to fail or…?’”

And so, a lot of people have different kinds of wounds that make them try so hard, and so they don’t recognize them as wounds because they think, “That’s why I’m successful.”

Pete Mockaitis
And when you gave us some examples, these were sort of like false beliefs, “I have to, I have to, I have to, I have to.” It’s sort of like, in this context, a wound is a belief that is false and problematic and causes unease. Is that the entirety of what a wound is? Or is that just a subset?

Patrick Lencioni
I don’t know. I don’t know if that’s the entirety. My guess is that there’s probably some others. But what it does is, it’s the unease. Because that unease could get you to do things that society says are good, or it could get you to do things that society says are bad. And that’s almost independent of the wound itself.

So we look at people who like, “I’m an athlete, and I’m in my 40s, and I can’t give up my sport, and I have to go for another Super Bowl.” And I’m not trying to pick on Tom Brady or anybody in particular. And it might be because this is their whole identity, right?

Or somebody else who’s like, “Hey, I love that I get to do this. I can still do it. Why not give it a shot? It’ll be fun. And if it doesn’t work out, I’m fine.” It can look exactly the same from the outside, but the reason they’re doing it informs whether it’s healthy or from a standpoint of woundedness.

And so many people work from a place of like, “I have to prove that I can still be that person. I have to prove that this is who I am. I’m a successful athlete,” or author or leader. And it’s like, “No, we’re not meant to do it out of fear. We’re meant to do it out of joy.”

Pete Mockaitis
Well, before we shift into talking Working Genius, specifically, just so we don’t leave anybody hanging, if they’re like, “Oh, my gosh, yes, that’s inside me,” what are some next steps or resources you’d point folks to who are seeing some of this woundedness stuff in themselves?

Patrick Lencioni
Well, there’s an author, I don’t know if you’ve ever heard of Bob Schuchts.

Pete Mockaitis
I think so, yeah.

Patrick Lencioni
So, he’s this Catholic author that’s a psychologist, and he wrote a book called Be Healed. And it’s a very faith-filled book, and he goes through the different kind of wounds, but there’s all kinds of other people out there. And there’s a lot of work these days on what’s called complex PTSD, CPTSD, which sounds very…and it talks about childhood trauma.

And most people listen to that and go, “Listen, nothing horrible happened to me when I was a kid,” and that’s what makes it complex. Sometimes little things happen throughout our childhood and we don’t realize the impact that had on us. So I really recommend people look into those things.

It sounds so deep and dour and psychological, but a lot of people have grown up with complex PTSD, which means you didn’t really get affirmed as a child. You didn’t really get paid attention to. And over time you adapted to that and even became successful, but you can’t experience the peace you’re supposed to. So the resources around those things are really good.

Pete Mockaitis
I like that a lot, and these notions of, it’s not like an epic trauma in terms of abuse or whatnot. But I can still recall like, geez, sixth grade, I was the school store manager for our student council. And someone asked me in a student council meeting, “Oh, yeah, how much money did the school store make?”

And I thought that the treasurer’s job is count money. And so, I looked over the treasurer, he’s like, “Yeah, how much did we make?” And then the student council president said to me, like in front of everybody, “Actually, that’s your job.” And she pointed at me and I was like, “Gasp,” and it felt profoundly shameful and embarrassing in that moment.

And, in a way, like, there are echoes of that in terms of, if I screw up, like on something that’s kind of important, and maybe kind of public, it’s like, “Oh,” you know, there’s some reverberation there.

Patrick Lencioni
Yes, and like what somebody would say is, “Was that the first and only time that happened or did that actually provoke memories of things that happened when you were younger or other things?” And that’s the thing. Sometimes somebody has just one incident, and you go, “That’s called PTSD.”

And sometimes it could be something horrible, like you got beaten up by somebody or something like that. Sometimes it can be embarrassed in front of the…and that was the only time, but you remember it. But often, what people realize is they go, “Oh, actually, I was kind of treated like, ‘You better not mess up. You better not mess up. You better not mess up.’ And then when you did, it was like, ‘Oh, it all came crashing down.’”

And there’s really good normal psychologists out there. I’m a believer in using one that has faith because, for me, that’s critical. And they help you go through, and they go, “I wonder if other things, anything else happened.” And they can help you think through those things, reprocess them, and let them go so you can move on in your life.

So this isn’t about wallowing in self-pity or making a big deal out of something small, but it’s also not about dismissing things, like, “Oh, just dust yourself off.” Sometimes stuff happens when you’re young. For me, there was kind of an implied thing, like, “You kind of need to be perfect.” And there’s reasons for that.

And so from age five, I was like, “Well, I better please my parents, my teachers, my coaches, my bosses.” So I became this pleaser of everyone, which is not healthy.

So I had to kind of go explore that. And, boy, thank God for that, because I’m learning how to enjoy life more and do my work from a place of excitement about getting to use my talents, as opposed to running from the possibility that I might fail or let somebody down.

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, Pat, so much good stuff. And this is just a warmup. We’re talking about Working Genius.

Patrick Lencioni
Well, luckily, Working Genius connects to all this.

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, absolutely. Well, tell us, what’s the big idea behind The 6 Types of Working Genius?

Patrick Lencioni
So I’m going to start with this. It’s really about avoiding guilt, shame, and judgment in life. Now, people are going to be like, “But wait, I thought it was a working tool.” Working Genius is about understanding the reality that you’re really, really good at a few things. And those are gifts that God gave you, and you’re meant to use those.

And you’re also not very good at a few things. And sometimes you have to do those things, but you shouldn’t feel bad that you’re not great at those. So, let me tell you how it came about, and I think it might be helpful. You know, it’s so funny, when I was on your podcast in 2020, I think, we got to look at the, it might have been the, do you remember the month I was with you?

Pete Mockaitis
I can look it up right now.

Patrick Lencioni
Because I think this idea came about in that very month.

Pete Mockaitis
We published it in March of 2020, just when things were popping off, huh?

Patrick Lencioni
Oh, okay. So two months later, I was back at work, so it was right after I was on your podcast last. And I was doing my work on Zoom because COVID was still kind of lingering there. And so I was in this one Zoom call and I was with a bunch of Catholic priests, teaching them how to be better leaders and managers. And I love that because I work with a lot of churches. And I was really excited and really in a good mood.

Then I had to have another Zoom call with a team that had worked on something I needed to give them feedback about how they needed to work harder and do more, and I was really bummed. I didn’t like doing that. And then I had another meeting where I talked about a podcast we were starting. I was really excited.

And the woman with me, Amy, she said, “Pat, why are you like that?” And I said, “What?” And she said, “Why do you get so excited and so bummed out and then so excited?” And I thought, “I don’t know why I’m like that, but it’s been going on for 20 years and I want to figure it out.”

And that, by the grace of God, prompted me with a whiteboard and a pen to sit down and figure out, “What is it about those moments when I get bummed out and the moments that I’m excited? What am I doing in those moments? What kind of actions, activities am I involved in?”

And the next thing I knew, I had these six circles on the board, which were the different kinds of work that are involved in any kind of project or any kind of work at all, at home, at the office, whatever. And I thought, “Oh, I love doing these two. These two, they’re okay. These two, oh, I really don’t like those. What’s going on?”

And what I found out was I was doing something that I wasn’t really great at every day. Every day, I’d come to work and people in my office go, “Do that for us. Do that for us. Do that for us.” And I thought, “Well, I’m the leader of the company, I guess I have to do it. And I think leaders are supposed to do this.” And it was burning me out. Burning me out hard over the course of many years.

Well, I wasn’t coming up with a book or a new product. I was just trying to explain my own behavior. One of our consultants saw the model on the whiteboard, and we told him about it, and the next day he was working with the CEO who was really struggling. He goes, “Let me show you this model I just saw yesterday,” and he put it up on the board.

And the guy had tears in his eyes, and he was like, “Oh, that explains it, why I’m so unhappy.” And so we were like, “Whoa, maybe there’s something universal here.” And so five months later, we introduced an assessment to help people understand their Working Geniuses. And now we’re going to get up to two million people doing this. And it’s growing like crazy right now.

So that’s how we came up with it. And it was to explain my own frustration in a job where I loved the people I worked with and I liked what we did, but I was, every day, coming to work and getting frustrated. And once I explained that, we introduced it to other people, and they were like, “Oh, you mean I don’t have to do this because I’m not meant to?” And we’re like, “No.”

The shame that gets lifted off your shoulders when you realize the things you’re bad at are probably for a reason, and trying to pretend you’re good at it or prove that you can be good at it is actually not good for you.

Pete Mockaitis
Yeah, well, I like that. When you talk about shame there, it’s funny. And so we’re going to talk about the six types in a moment. And I’ve got my own little PDF report here handy.

Patrick Lencioni
Ooh, good, I love to go over it with people.

Pete Mockaitis
And my areas of Working Genius are invention and wonder.

Patrick Lencioni
Oh, my wife is that.

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, fun. So that combo puts me in the creative dreamer pairing. So we’ll talk a little about what these words mean. But what’s interesting is like, I really do. I love thinking about new cool ideas, and the implications of it, and how that might unfold, and how that could be super valuable and transformational for folks. And it gets me so fired up.

But then, when you talk about shame in terms of, like, my email inbox is rarely, rarely at zero. And it feels like a slog to just, “Oh, I got to do this. I got to process this stuff.”

Patrick Lencioni
What are your lower letters? So you’re W and I, first two. What are the others?

Pete Mockaitis
Yeah, wonder and invention, and then my lowest ones were discernment and enablement.

Patrick Lencioni
Okay, so in the middle you have G-T. It’s so important to understand these things. And we were just talking today, I have a Working Genius Podcast where this is all we talk about.

It’s almost more important to understand your frustrations because that’s where we get our shame. People say, “Well, yeah, you come up with lots of good ideas and you’re a deemed thinker, but how come you don’t respond to people faster when they need your help?” And you’re like, “Oh, man.” And it’s like, “Because you don’t have an enablement.”

And it’s not an excuse. It’s an explanation for why that doesn’t give you joy and energy. See, that’s what this is all about. It’s like, “Pete, what gives you joy and energy?” You are naturally going to be better at that. God wired you to be good at that. You should lean into that as much as you can.

And when you struggle with something, you can say, “Hey, I’m really sorry. I didn’t get back to you. It’s not a strength of mine and I’m okay with that.”

Pete Mockaitis
Yeah. Now, they may or may not be okay with that on the receiving end.

Patrick Lencioni
But when you can say, “It’s not because I don’t care, it’s just because that is one of the things that I really struggle with. And I’m not going to try to get good at what I struggle with at the expense of exercising the things I’m supposed to be doing.” You know I’m saying?

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. I hear you. I hear you. Well, thank you. So, Pat has spoken, and I am absolved from shame.

Patrick Lencioni
And I picked up my phone because you would not believe the number of messages I have. My wife cleaned this out for me the other day, but I have 549 voicemails that I haven’t processed yet.

Pete Mockaitis
Mine just says it’s full. It just stops at a certain number. Okay. Well, so we would drop some words, some wonder, invention, enablement. So you got six words. Could you unpack each of them for us?

Patrick Lencioni
Yeah, I’ll try to do it fast, too. So there are six types of work. I don’t care if you’re launching a new podcast, or starting a company, or rebuilding your home, or planning a vacation, I mean, any project of any kind involves six different tasks that you need people to do. And none of us have all of them. It’s wonderful that we need each other to do that.

Here are the six types of work. And I’m going to start from up in the clouds where it happens in a fairly theoretical way, all the way down to landing the plane on the ground. So the first one that’s up there in the clouds is called wonder, which is one of your geniuses.

The genius of wonder is something that most people were never rewarded for as a child because you don’t see people doing it and it’s not very practical in the school kind of sense. And that is people with a genius of wonder get joy and energy out of pondering big questions.

They can sit for a long time and like, and they literally say like, “I wonder why things are like that. Maybe there’s a better way. I wonder if our customers are really happy.” Or, “Why do we live here? Do we really need to live here?” They’re asking the big question, and this is where all new things start.

And these are people that they love to be curious. And they can do it for a long time. I mean, a lot of people say, “Well, I can do that for five minutes.” No, no, no, these are people that can ponder things deeply. That’s the first genius.

But when you ask the big question, then somebody else comes along with the next genius, just slightly down below the clouds but still up there in cloudiness, and that’s the genius of invention, where that big question that somebody asks, the next one is, “Let me try to come up with an answer. Let me come up with an idea. Let me come up with a solution out of nothing.”

And this is a genius, this is one of mine, I don’t have wonder, that I love to solve problems with nothing. No context. It’s something I do naturally. I can’t help it. I do it even when people don’t ask me to. I wake up every day and love to come up with new ideas. Now here’s the thing, I always thought everybody liked to do that because it’s what I do. And there are other people that hate doing this.

I like to say, “One man’s trash is another man’s treasure.” And you’re a W-I, just like my wife, Pete, and you live in a world of ideation. These are the two ideation geniuses. And that’s just what you do.

Now, there’s things in jobs and things in life that we have to do that don’t fall into those. We have to do them but you are drawn to this, and so is my wife. And after 25 years of raising kids, and I helped her, I was very involved in our kids’ life, but she was home and driving them, and paying the bills, and doing the laundry, and making sure that the day worked, and they got to the appointments they needed to and the doctor, and solving all those tactical problems.

She read my book, and she said, “Oh, I really like this and I’m really pissed off.” And I said, “Why?” And she goes, “Because I spent the last 25 years living so far away from my genius.” Now, what’s interesting about that, Pete, is early, before we came up with this, I knew that she wasn’t wired to do a lot of the detailed stuff, day-to-day, and I said, “Why don’t we hire somebody to take some of that off your plate?”

And you know what she said? She said, “No, no, no, my friends are good at this. They can do it. And if they can do it, I should be able to do it, too.” See, she was comparing herself to others who had different wiring. And like Teddy Roosevelt said, “Comparison is the thief of joy.”

So when you do have to do some of that stuff, because we all do, you can go, “Yeah, this isn’t my thing. I don’t get any joy and energy from that. I’m going to grind through this, but I’m not going to pretend like there’s something wrong with me for not liking it.” Make sense?

Pete Mockaitis
It does, yes.

Patrick Lencioni
So the first two geniuses are yours and my wife’s, wonder and invention. Those are your favorite things to do. The next genius that comes after that is called discernment. Now discernment is the genius of having, like, you can look at multiple variables and put them all together. You’re really good at like instinct, intuition, and pattern recognition.

And this is one of my geniuses, it’s not my wife’s, but I love guessing the answer, and I usually guess pretty close. And somebody can come to me, and they can say, “I need to make a decision.” And even when I don’t know a lot of detail about it, I can usually come up with a pretty good judgment.

A woman that I work with, Tracy, has discernment. And even when she was a child, her friends would come to her, and they’d say, “What should we do, Tracy? Ask Tracy, she’ll know the answer.” And Laura and I will be like, “Should we refinance our house?” She’ll say, “Ask Tracy what she thinks.”

Tracy’s not an expert on home financing. What she is, is she’s got really good judgment. And so in our company, I trust Tracy implicitly with everything in running our company. She’s one of the founders. And if it’s a financial decision or a strategic decision, I’ll always run it by Tracy because her gut is so on.

A lot of spouses, if they have I and their partner has D, they really misunderstand each other because they’ll come up with an idea and their spouse will tell them why it’s not going to work. And they’ll go, “Why are you so against my ideas?”

And they’re like, “No, no, no, I love you. I just want to make sure you don’t drive the car off a cliff in pursuing this idea. And I want your ideas to land so that you feel good about it. But my job is to make sure you’re seeing the potential downside.” And they can sometimes get frustrated.

Okay, after discernment comes galvanizing, the G. This is the one I didn’t have as a genius and I was doing it every day and it burned me out. People with galvanizing love to rally the troops. They love to push and to inspire, and to cajole people, and to get people to change what they’re doing to do something new or better. They love being that one to go, “Hey, everybody, close your laptops. I have an idea and I think we should change the way we’re doing things.”

I don’t get energy from that. Some people love that. They literally wake up, and go, “I hope I get to get up in front of the office today and inspire them to change what they’re doing.” And it’s really important in a business to have people that do that, but I was doing it every day and I’m not great at it.

So I found other people in my company that love doing that, and I said, “I want you to run the daily meeting where you get people excited again, because I did it once. I don’t love to do it every day. You do love to do it. And they were like, “Are you kidding? You mean you’re going to let me do this?”

I’m like, “Yeah, it’s your genius.” “But I haven’t been here that long.” I said, “No, no, no, this isn’t like permission because of tenure. You are good at it. I’m going to give you a job that you’re good at, all right?” So galvanizing.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, and, Pat, it’s fascinating, if I may. So you are a renowned keynote speaker, and that sounds like fundamentally what one does is galvanizing. Are you telling me, “Yeah, I’m not so much into that”?

Patrick Lencioni
No, because galvanizing is the guy that comes back the next day and the next day and the next day, and says, “How come you’re not doing that? Come on, let’s go.” I like to inspire people once and then go on and go, “Okay, there’s more people that need to be inspired in other ways and I’ll move on to them.”

But coming back to the clients again the next day and the next day and reminding them and keeping them moving is not my thing. Now I’m not terrible at it, but the thing is, because I was doing it all the time, I got totally burnt out on something even that wasn’t a frustration. See, even our working competencies, which are the two in the middle, we’re not meant to do them all the time. And so I got burnt out on that.

So, okay, so those two in the middle are called activation. You ideate, Pete, then you need people to activate your ideas to make sure they’re on the right track and to get people excited. And then come the last two geniuses, and the next one is called enablement, the E.

And people with a gift of enablement, which neither you or I have at all, are the ones, they just love to come alongside other people and help them get it going. So, when somebody says, “I need help,” they impulsively, because they love doing it, they go, “Yeah, I’ll do it.” Like, they get joy and energy out of saying, “Yes, what do you need?”

And there are certain professions, like nurses, and we tend to say, “Well, they’re an angel.” Yeah, there is a wonderful virtue in that. But they also, if they’re built to do this, they just love when people say, “I need something,” and they go, “I want to be the one to say yes.”

And it’s not because they’re easily manipulatable or just nice, it’s because they really get fed. And there are certain customer service roles that people love, “Oh, yeah, I can do this every day, all day long.” There are certain flight attendants, when you call the flight attendant button, they come over and are like, “Yeah, what do you need?” They love responding and saying yes.

The last is the T, which is tenacity. And that is these are people that get joy and energy out of finishing things. They love the last part because they love to get things across the line. And they’re like, “Oh, I’m going to go to work today, and I have a whole bunch of things on my list, and I’m going to cross them off, and I’m going to hit my targets, and I’m going to just be so satisfied.”

And, Pete, I have none of this. And I’ve written 14 books. So people say, “Well, you must have tenacity. You finished all those books.” Yeah, but if I didn’t have a deadline and an editor and people making me finish, I would have 14 half-written books, because halfway through, I get distracted and I want to move on to the next idea. And I need somebody going, “Nope, get back in there and finish it, and finish it well.”

So, we all need one another. And if you’re going to be great at work, you know, how to be awesome at your job, if you want to be awesome at your job over a relatively long period of time, understand your Working Geniuses, try to make sure that your work lines up with those as much as possible, know what your working frustrations are, your last two, make sure your work does not depend on that.

So, Pete, I got the best job coming out of college in the country. There was a book written in 1987, the best jobs in America for college grads. And this woman from Fortune magazine wrote a book, and she said, “If you want to have the best job in America that pays well and gives you great experience, go to Bain & Company and be a management consultant.” So I applied for the job like every…

Pete Mockaitis
That was my first job out of college, too.

Patrick Lencioni
You worked at Bain also?

Pete Mockaitis
I did, yes.

Patrick Lencioni
Okay, so we know of some of the same people. I mean, you’re much younger than me. But I was miserable because I wanted to come up with new ideas and solve problems, and they wanted me to do exactly what they asked me to do and to finish it.

Now, you have more T than I do, so you could probably get through it, but it was exactly the wrong job for me. And for two years, I survived. How long were you there?

Pete Mockaitis
Three.

Patrick Lencioni
Three years. So, I survived for two years, and Meg Whitman was the partner on the case at the time, and she said to me, “Pat, you would be a great partner because you like to think about the strategic stuff, but you’re an analyst and you need to crank. You need to get things done and do details and specifics, and do exactly what we tell you to do. And when we tell you to do something, we don’t need you to say, ‘Hey, what about this?’ It’s like, no, just please execute. It’s about execution and implementation.”

And I didn’t know Working Genius at the time, but I appreciated what she told me. But I thought, “Why could I not push through and do that?” And I look back now, and had they offered me that job today, I would look at this, and I’d go, “Oh, man, I’m really honored that you offered me this job, but I’m never going to be great at it. I’m not going to enjoy it.”

Do you know what I did when I was there, Pete? This is going to be amazing, because you remember the crazy hours you worked at Bain. I would stay at night from 9:30 at night when I stopped working until 1:00 in the morning and write screenplays just to get myself through it, just to tap into my creative skills, because I’m a writer.

So after they would say, “Okay, it’s 9:30, you can go home now. We’ll see you in the morning,” I would often stay and work on my screenplays, and I realized now I just needed to feed my creative side. So knowing that, Bain should never hire an analyst that had my profile. I was not going to be awesome at my job there. I was not going to be awesome at my job there.

And, man, I just want every student to figure out what their Working Genius is so they don’t take a job that they’re not meant to be great at it, and then come out of there with no confidence and feeling like they should be ashamed of themselves. I struggled with that for years after I left Bain.

Pete Mockaitis
Yeah, yeah, I hear that, and that’s well said. And it really does a great job of demystifying, you know, because long hours, it’s interesting, sometimes long hours are a brutal slog that turned you into a burnt-out depressed mess. And other times, long hours are like, “This is one of the most thrilling seasons of my life.”

Patrick Lencioni
Oh, and burnout is not about you working too much. Some people can get burned out just because of the hours they’re working, but 98% of the time it’s not about the hours you’re working. It’s about the nature of the work you do.

And I can come home from work after a 12-hour day, and my wife can say, “Wow, you’re energized, aren’t you?” And I’m like, “Oh, it was a great day. I was inventing and discerning. I was using my I-D, and I was doing this.” I worked at a bank as a bank teller. Three hours into every day, I’d be staring at the clock, and I swear it was like moving backwards, like, “Hey, what’s going on?” It’s about the nature of work.

And so, when somebody is getting burned out at work, and they go, “Oh, just take some time off.” It’s like, “No, I’m just going to go golfing and be depressed about the fact that I’m going to have to go back and keep doing the thing I hate.”

When you find work that gives you joy and energy, it’s such a gift because you’re almost never going to burn out, and you’re going to go home at night to your family with more joy and energy for them, too.

But when you have a job that’s draining you, you know, I like to say that your two geniuses, Pete, are like pouring coffee into a Yeti Mug – I have a Yeti Mug thing around here – and screwing the lid on tight. It’ll hold its heat forever, right? You can get burnt after eight hours like, “Hey, why is this so hot?” because that’s your Working Genius.

Your next two, your working competencies, and for you that’s G and T, which lends themselves to Bain, that’s pouring coffee in a cup and putting a lid on it, like a paper cup like this. It’s going to stay warm for a while. Your working frustration is pouring coffee into this cup, but there’s a little hole in the bottom of it, and it drains out almost immediately. It robs you of joy and energy.

So, if you don’t know what your genius is, your competencies, and your frustrations are, you can’t possibly know about how to be awesome at work. Now here’s the thing, I love talking about this, you don’t need to change careers or even jobs to find a better fit for your geniuses. Sometimes you just need to go to your manager, and say, “Hey, I want you to look at my report.”

We had a guy, shortly after we introduced this, who had a performance review, and he said it was not going to be pleasant. He goes, “I’d had a bad year. So I go in there, and I sit down with my manager and my manager’s manager. And the night before I did it, I did Working Genius. And I looked at my Working Genius results, and I said, ‘Hey, you guys, could you look at this before we get started?’”

And they looked at his report, and they said, “Well, it’s no wonder you’ve had a terrible year. This is a horrible job for you, isn’t it?” And he goes, “Yeah.” And they go, “We have that other job in that department. You’d be perfect for that.”

And he goes, “I got promoted because all I did is I said, ‘Here’s who I am.’” And if you’re a halfway decent manager, you’re going to be like, “Well, why don’t you take that job? You’ll be great at that. And we’ll find somebody else who actually is good at this.”

We have to stop trying to prove that we’re going to be good at things that we’re not meant to be good at. So to be awesome at your job, find a job that you can be awesome at. And it probably already exists in the organization you’re in.

When I hire people, I design their work to fit their gifts rather than trying to fit a square peg in a round hole. And unless you’re working at a pencil factory where everybody’s doing the same thing, most organizations have different needs for different things.

And it’s crazy, Pete, because, like, I talk to pastors and priests and teachers, and two people with the same job can go about doing it differently based on who they are. Like, a teacher could say, “Well, I’m an E-T, I have a great lesson plan. I’m very organized. And when a parent needs help, I’m very responsive to them.”

Another one, you would be a W-I. Like, I come up with the most creative ideas for learning and they’re very innovative, but I need a teaching assistant who’s going to make sure that the papers get graded, and that the parents get responded to, and that we get the grades turned in on time. Two people can have the same job and go about it in totally different ways and be really fulfilled. But if they try to do that job in exactly the same way… No teacher is good at all of it. No CEO, no anything is good at all of it.” So design your work around what is needed.

And if I were to go back to my dad when I was a kid, and I felt guilty about not liking doing the lawn, I’d have probably said, “Hey, dad, I want to help you. Could I have some input into how I do this? Would it be okay if I came up with a new way to plant flowers or to do this? Can we involve some of my invention and discernment?”

And there’s a dang good chance he’d have said, “Sure. I just want you to come out here and help me.” But I thought, “No, I needed to do it exactly the way he told me.”

So, man, bring this to the people you work with, your colleagues, your manager. Bring it to the people you live with. It’ll change the way you talk and it’ll change the way they see you and you see yourself.

Pete Mockaitis
And now, when you say bring it, so practically, tactically speaking, how does one get those letters? We get the book, the six types of working genius, we go to a website, you’ve got a code. What’s the…?

Patrick Lencioni
Yes, before you read the book, go do the assessment. The book explains it in more detail, but you get so much out of it. So if you go to WorkingGenius.com, and when you check out, you type in awesome. These are in capital letters. I don’t know if it has to be capital letters. You might as well give it a shot. And you’ll get 20% off. That means when we designed this, that means it’s going to cost you $20 to do this.

And when you do it, read the report. It shows you the combination you have. There’s 15 different combinations. Like, you’re the creative dreamer. I’m the discriminating ideator. The E-T is the loyal finisher. You read those types, and you go, “Oh, this is totally me.” And really dive into that, and really ensure that it’s you. And then go share it with other people. This is a great thing.

Teams do it. Like, everybody on a team in a company does it. And they’ll look at the map. They can make a team map that shows what all their types are, and they can go, “Oh, we have nobody who’s good at that. No wonder that we struggle there.” Or, “We have a ton of people who are good at that. Maybe, the next person we hire, we might want to hire somebody that’s good at these other things, too.”

Pete Mockaitis
All right. Well, as we wrap up, I want to hear quickly about a few of your favorite things. Can you give us a favorite quote, something you find inspiring?

Patrick Lencioni
I mean, most of them are from the Bible, okay? I love, “My burdens are light. Come follow me and I will give you rest.” I love, “Comparison is the thief of joy.” I love that. We compare ourselves to others and we just feel bad, so don’t do that. So that’s a favorite quote, too.

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

Patrick Lencioni
I love that one that says when somebody asks you to do a favor for them, you’ll do it. But if they try to pay you to do it, you’re less likely to do it because you’re thinking about it in economic terms.

And we tend to think, like, people have a, generally, good nature. And when you need help, realize it’s not an economic decision for most people, it’s a desire to help.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. And a favorite book?

Patrick Lencioni
I think my favorite book ever is a book called Brother Odd. O-D-D. It’s about this character named Odd Thomas who’s really interesting.

Pete Mockaitis
And a favorite habit?

Patrick Lencioni
Every day, I wake up and I listen to the readings of the day from church, because I used think, “How can I do this?” And I listen to, you know, in the Catholic Church, there’s an Old Testament reading or a letter, and the Psalms and then the Gospel. And every day, I listen to those when I wake up and I start my day like that.

Pete Mockaitis
And is there a key nugget you share that has really seemed to connect and resonate with folks, a Pat quotation that seems to really have legs?

Patrick Lencioni
Yeah, that the most important things in life are simple but difficult. Complexity is not the answer. It’s, like, coming to terms, like, “Oh, what’s the simple solution to this that I don’t want to do because it’s hard?” And we need to avoid that, looking for that complex solution that’ll be easy, which doesn’t exist. So, life is simple but difficult.

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

Patrick Lencioni
My company is called The Table Group. And if you go to TableGroup.com, you can find out about all the other stuff we do around teamwork and leadership and meetings and consulting and all that kind of stuff. And then we do have a podcast called The Working Genius Podcast, and we do one called At the Table, which is just about work.

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

Patrick Lencioni
Yeah, be vulnerable, show people what you’re good at and what you’re not good at, and realize that that vulnerability will feel a little risky and good things happen through that.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. Pat, this has been a pleasure. Thank you.

Patrick Lencioni
I hope we get together sometime, Pete, since we’re living in the same city now.

Pete Mockaitis
Kate, welcome!

Kate Mason
Thanks so much for having me, Pete.

Pete Mockaitis
I’m excited to be chatting, and I want to hear, first and foremost, about you being a world champion debater. What’s the world champion of debate look, sound, feel like?

Kate Mason
Well, it’s a nerd convention that I went to when I was in high school, and I continued debating in university, and it’s basically the best people in the world come together and debate together. It’s brilliant.

Pete Mockaitis
That’s cool. And so, I’m thinking, back in high school, I did some speech individual events and I thought it was a ton of fun. But world sounds so hardcore because I didn’t even make it to the state finals. So, what do world champion debaters, what’s the vibe like when you’re in their midst?

Kate Mason
It’s pretty intense. You tend to study up on global affairs and lots of issues in the months preceding debates, and you know that there are going to be different categories of topics. So, there’s one like on sports and one on politics and one on social justice.

There’s usually categories and then you just practice as many at-bats and practice debates as you can in the lead up. And then it’s actually just a ton of fun. You meet people from all over the world and you get to of compare and contrast your different cultural styles and ways of doing stuff. It’s really fascinating.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, I think it’s a fascinating backdrop to, we’re talking about your book, Powerfully Likeable, in terms of being a world champion debater. That’s something that seems pretty helpful there because you need to be powerful. Like, you’ve got very persuasive points, they’re hard hitting, they are data-driven, they are logically sound and cogent, they fit together, and they got some oomph. But, also, there’s human beings and judges that you kind of got to win over and have think, “You know, I like this person.”

Kate Mason
Absolutely. So, debate is always marked on your matter, so what you present; your manner, how you present it; and your method, the way you’ve structured and made your arguments sort of cut through. And I’ve always taken that perspective through all my corporate work as well. Even though it’s not marked in exactly the same way, I think about those same components always operating together.

And you can feel that, too, if you’re in a meeting that’s really well-run by someone. Chances are they’ve structured it really well, they’ve said something really well, but they’ve also said it in a way that’s persuasive or sort of spoke to you. So those are the three things I always keep in mind and have always been pretty ingrained in me for a long time.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, being powerfully likable sounds like something that I want and many of us want. Can you share with us, for starters, a particularly fascinating discovery you’ve made about humans who are powerfully likable? What’s going on there? Any key surprises that you’ve uncovered?

Kate Mason
Yeah, so I think when you think about leadership, or when many of us think about leadership, it feels like you can only choose through two options, right? It feels like there’s the powerful one, where I can be high authority and no friends, or I can be the likable one, which is low power, or low authority, and maybe lots of friends.

And I think I often work with people who feel a little bit stuck between those two doors, or it feels like that’s a one-way choice, right, that once you make it, then you’re sort of bound to it forever. And what I wanted to do with this book was to say, one, those doors and that artifice doesn’t really exist, but, more importantly, there’s tons of ways to show up in between those.

And, in fact, sometimes bringing those two seemingly dissonant ideas together can make for a much more generative interesting version of leadership.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, could you perhaps paint a picture for what a powerfully likable person might look, sound, feel like in person when they are presenting some things?

Kate Mason
Yeah, so one of the things I think about a lot when I’m coaching folks is, “Where does your own power or your own energy feel highest?” So, it’s going to look really different for all of us. So, annoyingly, I don’t have one answer for you in this, but I encourage you to think, “Where are those moments where I think I come out of a meeting or an interaction or conversation, and think, ‘That went exactly as I hoped it went. I really landed my point or I really made able to convince somebody else of something.’”

Those are the moments in which we feel that there’s something going on in our connective or relational currency, there’s something going on with our own power, and we’re probably cottoned on to our likeability in the sense that we’re feeling people resonate or come with us. That’s the moment for you where you’re probably embodying that.

And why I say for you, is that it’s a little bit subjective, it looks a bit different for all of us, but I think you know it when you have that feeling of like, “Yes, that went exactly as I hoped it would, and it resonated with the people in the way that I hoped it might.”

Pete Mockaitis
That sounds super. Well, could you share a story of a professional who saw transformation along these lines? They used some of your stuff and became more powerfully likeable and they saw some cool results in their side.

Kate Mason
Yeah, a lot of people either come to me, they come to me on both ends of the spectrum. So, they either come to me saying, “I kind of need more quote ‘executive presence.’ I’ve been told I need to be more confident,” or they come to me at the other end of things, which, “I’ve been told I’ve been, I’m too abrupt or I’m too aggressive or too transactional.” Feedback I’ve certainly received both ends in my career as well.

But I’ll give you an example of someone who came to me from the lower end, right, “I want to step into my power and I’ve been told I need to work on that.” She was using a lot of really undermining language, really subconsciously. She wasn’t sure making, she didn’t intend to. But it had the impact of making her own work and, by extension, kind of herself not seem very important.

So, she would do things like she would often minimize what she was saying by saying things like, “I’m not an expert, but…” or, “I’m not an engineer, but…” so she would give these caveats. She would say things like, “It’ll just take two seconds,” or, “No worries if not,” or, “I’ll just pop by your desk,” right? Everything was very small and minimal.

And what she was, by extension, saying, like if someone says to you, “Pete, can I grab two minutes?” it’s probably, you’re not expecting that I’m going to tell you about some epiphany I’ve had, right? Like, it doesn’t seem very important. She was sort of couching her language in these ways that were subtly undermining her own importance and, by extension, I guess the work, the importance of her work.

So, we sort of did a bit of an audit, like, “Hey, do you notice these things are going on?” She often uses the phrase, “Does that make sense?” at the end of everything she said. She would often explain something to me perfectly, super rationally, super intelligently, and then say, “Did that make sense?” And I said, “What you’re actually asking for there is consensus. You’re asking.” Or, “Are you ready to move on?” or, “Have what I said actually made sense to you?”

And so, we worked on a number of these, and she started eliminating some of them. And, over time, she said it would really change the way her team saw her. They gave her feedback like, “We really appreciate how decisive you’re being.” She was getting feedback that she said she hadn’t actually changed the direction of her work. It was just the couching of her language was slightly different and it was landing really differently too.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, that’s really interesting. The small minimizing, undermining kind of language there. I’m reminded of, I think there’s a lot of little vocal pauses in this department, “kind of like,” “sort of,” “you know,” that really diminishes it. And my buddy, Connor, and I, we have this joke. I remember this is one of my first work experiences. I was at an internship and we were all out to dinner and it was kind of fun, like, “Ooh yeah, corporate money. Yeah, this is fun.”

And I remember someone said, “So do you guys want to get some appetizers or…?” and he trailed off with an ‘or.’ But the people were kind of in conversation, no one was really tuned in, but I sort of noticed him, and I was thinking, “Well, I very much want lots of appetizers because they’re free,” and I am still in college and I’m unaccustomed to this experience.

Kate Mason
This bounty.

Pete Mockaitis
Yes. But I didn’t want to speak up because, yeah, I didn’t quite know the rules of the game here. And then I noticed he said it again in the exact same way, “So do you guys want to get the appetizers or…?” And I just thought about how trailing off with an ‘or’ really diminishes the power or the vibe of what you’re saying.

And so, my buddy, Connor and I, we used to joke about, like, what’s the most powerful sentence you could say and then undermine with ‘or’ such as, “So are you guys are inspired by my vision, or…?” And, “So, are you guys are ready to go into battle and put your life on the line for freedom, or…?”

And so, it’s just sort of a little joke, but I think it calls into stark relief how we are often saying some fairly high-stakes things for people with regard to lots of investment or lots of time people are spending on a thing, and the little minimizing words and phrases are out of place.

Kate Mason
Yeah. Well, they’re just not doing us any service, right? And so, if they’re not helping us or, worse, they’re undermining us actively, I think it’s worthwhile thinking through what they might be and, whether you might want to change them or at least play around with it, right? You might experiment and think, “What about I don’t use this thing? Or, what about I use this other thing?” and see if there’s a shift or a change in the way that you are feeling at work, which I think is really interesting.

Pete Mockaitis
And I want to zoom in on “Does that make sense?” because I’m thinking about consulting. I remember I heard that a lot from our team. I even commented once, like, “Boy, it feels like we say that a lot when we’re in these client meetings.” And someone joked, “What we’re saying is, ‘Do you got it or do I have to slow down for you dumb-dumbs?’” It was like, “Ha, ha, ha.”

Kate Mason
Yeah. I mean, that’s another point, which I think a lot of people take rightly some umbrage at that, which is like, it can sound really patronizing, right? Like, “Does that make sense to your small, infantile mind? Or, you know, like, because I’m so brilliant.” So, it can be kind of offensive in a number of ways.

But I think what the person is trying to say is, “I’ve just given you a lot of information. Are you with me? Like, are you ready to move on?” Or, you’re asking for a show of understanding in case you’re not getting any audience feedback. If you’re not getting a lot of nods and smiles, for example, sometimes you tend to ask that, “Does that make sense? Have I gotten through to you?”

And a great way to do that is you can just pause and, say, you’re presenting to a group, and you can say something like, “I’ve just gone through a lot of information. Does anyone have any questions before we move on?” And it’s just a very different way of saying the same thing, or having the same meaning come across, but not look like you’re sort of either insulting everybody else’s intelligence or undermining your own, because we assume you make sense, right?

Pete Mockaitis
Yeah. Well, Kate, I love these quick little swaps like, “Say this, not that.” Do you have any more for us? So, instead of, “Does that make sense?” we’ve got, “Hey, we’ve covered a lot of information. Before we move on, are there any questions?” I love it. Any other instant substitutions you recommend?

Kate Mason
There’s tons. So, a great one, or a common one I often hear, is someone will say, “Can I just pop by your desk?” or, “It’ll only take two seconds.” And this is a really interesting one because what you’re trying to say on your side when you’re asking it is, “I don’t want to cause any trouble,” or, “I promise this won’t take long. This won’t be painful.”

But what it actually says to me is like, “My work isn’t that important. I’m not that important.” If it’s only going to take two seconds, it must be some sort of irritant. So, you could actually say, “Hey, Pete, I really want to walk you through,” whatever it is, “I’m going to put 30 minutes on your calendar next week. Feel free to move it around if that time doesn’t work.”

By extension, you’ve sort of said, “This is important and I want to take time and sit down with you.” And you’re being warm and friendly by saying, “Find a time that actually works.” So, I call the feeling of not wanting to make those impositions, imposing syndrome, that we, it’s not so much imposter syndrome that’s the problem here, which we’re all pretty familiar with, but it’s imposing.

We don’t want to make it imposition, and so we sort of shrink down the ask. And, actually, sometimes the ask is usually a very valid and legitimate one, so I’m really encouraging folks to make the ask.

Pete Mockaitis
That’s good. Okay. Any other substitutions you recommend?

Kate Mason
A really common phrase that people often use in that same vein of not wanting to make an imposition is that they’ll ask for something. So, “Hey, Pete, would you be able to get me those notes by the end of today?” And then they’ll end it, even though they’ve made a perfect ask, they’ll end it with, “No worries if not.” Right? And it’s such a common one.

And we find it’s coming out of our mouths before we even thought about it. And, “No worries if not,” sometimes there actually is a worry, sometimes I need those notes by the end of today, like, “Our boss needs it,” or, “I need to send it to someone else.” So, the, “No worries if not” is a really one I get people to just catch and say, like, you could just actually say what’s true, which was like, “I appreciate it. It’s such a tight turnaround. Thanks so much in advance. I have to get this to, you know, so-and-so by this evening.”

So, you’re actually explaining what’s going to happen or, like, the reason that you need the thing. And, like, “Thanks again.” Again, it’s subtle but it’s important when, if I see a “No worries if not,” there could be a feeling of, like, “Oh, maybe it’s not that important if I get back to them today.” And, in fact, it often really is important.

Pete Mockaitis
Yes, that’s good. I’m also thinking about the use of the word “obviously,” which can be a bit of a crutch or a self-confidence thing that I find kind of problematic.

Kate Mason
Give me the context. Tell me about it.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, so someone says, “Well, and obviously these numbers include something, something, something.” And so, I’m thinking, “Well, if it’s not…” I guess I’m just like, I mean, I’m a former competitive speech person, too, so maybe I’m just really judgmental and critical. It’s like, “Well, if it’s obvious, I suppose it didn’t need to be said. So that’s unnecessary.”

But, also, I think it’s potentially offensive in the case of, “Oh, well, that was not obvious to me. I guess I’m just an idiot.”

Kate Mason
Right, “Now, I feel stupid because I’ve got to clarify what you mean.” Yeah.

Pete Mockaitis
But I think most often people say “obviously,” kind of from a similar place of diminished confidence, they’re like, “Okay, I’m saying this thing, but, I think, maybe that people are going to say, ‘Well, duh.’ So, I’m sort of trying to head that off at the pass.” So, I bring that up because I feel like it’s coming from a similar place of, well, Kate, you tell us. Like, what is this psychological place of smallness? What’s up with that?

Kate Mason
Yeah. Well, no one wants to say the stupid thing, do they? Right? Like, there’s that feeling of. And the other way you might hear it, “obviously” is a great example, but the other one you might hear or be familiar with is someone saying like, “You’ve probably already thought of this,” or, “This is probably something that someone’s already said before,” right? They’re giving that preemptive caveat to say, “Please don’t hate me.”

Pete Mockaitis
Yes, “Please don’t hate me.”

Kate Mason
And, oftentimes, it’s like a perfectly reasonable thing to say. And it may be, “I have thought about it before, but that’s fine for you to tell me again.” So, yeah, just thinking through, and I don’t want people to get paranoid about all of their language in every single word.

But if you’re noticing, take a little audit, right? Just through the week, “Oh, I noticed I’ve said this. Oh, I noticed somebody else said this. What was the effect of it? How did it feel? Is there a substitution here I could make that maybe gives myself a little more credibility or I liken myself a little bit more? It could be interesting.”

Pete Mockaitis
I think your “Please don’t hate me” is the perfect articulation of what seems to be, from my perspective, a little bit of a psychological root of all this stuff. It’s almost like a fear of stepping on toes or being seen as dumb or rude or inconsiderate. So, what do you recommend we do to just kind of get our mindset and our heads right with this whole thing?

Kate Mason
Yeah, so, exactly what you’re talking about is one of the threat responses that we can exhibit when we feel under threat communicatively. And so, if you think about those, there’s four of them I talk about in the book, but one of them is fight, so someone gets really aggressive.

One of them is flight, they want to leave the conversation or sometimes you see people on stage halfway out of their seat, right? That’s a flight response. A freeze response, they go blank or they don’t know an answer. And the one we’re talking about here is the fawn response, right, to make yourself small in the face of, like, a threat.

And it’s so fascinating, because once you start recognizing these patterns, either in yourself or others, it’s a really helpful code almost or a language that you can start realizing, “Oh, I need to kind of bring them down or deescalate that threat.” They’ve perceived something here and we need to kind of help them regulate or work out how to be more normal in the face of something that feels threatening.

So. in the sense of that smallness one, there’s often a sense of like, “I’m not worthy,” or, “I’m worried about something,” or, “I’m afraid of this not being good enough,” and just thinking through and isolating exactly what that is, and just interrogating it a little bit can be a very helpful way through that to work out, “What is it that I’m actually afraid of?”

Most people are afraid of looking stupid in front of somebody else. And, actually, asking a clarifying question or a powerful question in the face of not knowing an answer is often very helpful to the rest of the group. It’s often not, you know, annoying to others in the way that you might think it is.

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, I like that a lot. So, these diminishing words and language are part of the fawn branch of a stress response — fight, flight, freeze, fawn. And then when you phrase it that way, we could see that there are other folks who will just go very differently. They’ll fight, they’ll get defensive, like, “Well, that’s because we didn’t get the information in time, and so our team wasn’t able to…” And so, they’re going off in another direction.

And that also doesn’t inspire a lot of confidence in terms of, “Now here’s someone who’s really on top of things and a rock star professional.” So, it seems like part of the game is just really getting clear. Like you said, interrogate what’s up in terms of what is it that we fear, and how are we manifesting that in terms of, maybe we’re defensive on the fight.

Maybe we are just like, “Get me out of here. I don’t want anything to do with this project or this person,” on the flight. Or, the freeze, they just sort of say nothing, over the course of the meeting.

Kate Mason
Or, you blank on an answer or something.

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, yeah. So, how do we get to a place beyond the interrogation of our fears and worries, where we’re able to say, “Yeah, it’s quite possible that I’m going to embarrass myself or someone’s going to hate this idea, and I am not bothered”?

I find that fascinating. That seems to be like some people seem not at all troubled by saying things that are false or offensive. And, in a way, I don’t want to be like them. I’d like to be accurate and I’d like to be respectful. But I also kind of envy, it’s like, “Man, you really just don’t give a flying F about how you’re coming across right now. I would like a little bit, but not a full portion of what you have.”

Kate Mason
Yeah. Well, that’s it, right, “God grant me the confidence of a mediocre person.” Like, there’s some sort of liberation there. I think part of this is self-aware folks are usually the ones making these sorts of questions of themselves. They’ve thought so deeply, and, in fact, their own awareness of their perceived, say, likeability, is so high that that’s why some of these threat responses come in, because they’re so deeply concerned and mindful of their place in the organization.

So, it’s usually people who are already pretty self-aware that are having these questions. And they are, for better or worse, and I think it’s better that they’re the folks that I tend to work with, because they’re the ones who are like, “Oh, I think I’d like to work with a communications coach.”

I think the thing that is really interesting to reframe, if you ask somebody who’s feeling like, “Gosh, I would like to ask this question but I’m worried about it,” or, “I’m new to this team,” I have a whole section in the book talking about repositioning questions which can feel deferential or junior in there because we ask a lot of questions when we’re starting out at a job, to think about asking a powerful question.

So, there’s a range of different powerful questions you could use in those sorts of situations, which is like, “Am I right in thinking we’re looking at the X versus the Y?” or, “I want to get up to speed quickly here. Can you just clarify the acronym here so that I know we’re on the same page?”

These are ways of actually asking a really smart question or just showing your engagement on something but getting the information you need. And you don’t need to cave it with like, “Ugh, I’m such an idiot. I don’t know what this acronym means,” but you’re just being mindful and moving things forward. And I think most people appreciate that trajectory and that pushing forward.

When I was debating, I was in a team with this wonderful guy, and it took me a long time to realize, but his code for when he didn’t know something, and we were in a prep room together, his code was, “Talk me through,” whatever the topic. And for a long time, I’d be like, “Oh, great. Well, this is how that works.” And it took me a long time to realize, “Oh, he’s actually saying ‘I don’t know anything about this topic.’”

And it was such a funny realization to me because it always felt very authoritative, and he said it in a way that was very unruffled, very calm, but he meant that, “I need you to talk me through and I need you to help me understand this issue.”

And so, there’s different ways that we can ask for that information, still get what we need, but not necessarily be like, “I’m so sorry for being an idiot,” and “Mea culpa” our way into sort of a deferential position if we didn’t really want to be there.

Pete Mockaitis
And I think it’s also handy when you’re new just to list all the questions. I remember being in some meetings where I felt so clueless, but it was so handy to just write down all of my questions and then I could find out a chunk of them via, whatever, Google, ChatGPT, internal documents, and then only a few were left and that felt great in terms of I am getting up to speed very quickly. And then that just builds natural confidence.

And the questions that you have left, typically are pretty good. It was like, “Yes, of course, it would make sense that you’re asking that. And, in fact, you seem smarter because you’re asking that and you’re being proactive and taking care of things.”

Kate Mason
I think you’ve come to a really interesting point, which is like, I’m saying asking questions can be powerful. Asking thoughtful questions can be powerful. Like, the fact that you’ve done your homework and tried to get as much of it together yourself is really great demonstration that you’ve got in some way there.

I think if it’s like a question like, “What’s this meeting about again?” or something that demonstrates that you just don’t care or haven’t been listening at all, it’s probably going to work in the opposite way. So, I love that, that you’ve gone and sort of done some homework and then come back with the remainder is a great way to think about it.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, yeah, this reminds me of grade school. I’m thinking, when you can ask a great question of a teacher, and they really appreciate it. And they say, “Oh, thank you so much for that. I guess I wasn’t so clear the way I explained how this scientific concept works.”

But then when, I remember, some people would ask the question, it’s not even a question, it’s just like, “I don’t get it.” And you could tell, you could see the teacher’s frustration, it’s like, “I don’t…Well, what is it that you don’t get?” It’s like, “I don’t even know where to begin with this.” So, yeah, you can upgrade your questions, certainly.

Kate Mason
Yeah. I still remember someone who, I don’t know, maybe three semesters into learning Latin, asked the teacher, “Where’s Latin?” And that was a revealing moment.

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, well, yeah. Certainly. Yeah, and they probably asked that to someone else elsewhere, is the best move there. Well, I want to get your perspective as well on when we need to be all the more powerful in terms of, we’re pushing back or disagreeing or challenging folks but they’re worried that we’re going to seem like, “Oh, we’re difficult. We’re not a team player. We’re not really committed,” what are your pro tips for dealing with that situation?

Kate Mason
One of the ways, I think, is to demonstrate what part of you is aligned before you’re talking about what’s difficult. So, you could say something like, “Pete, I really want us, I know both of us want to make sure that we can launch by Friday.” So, you’re emphasizing a shared goal.

Or, “I know we both need to get these numbers ready by end of week,” or whatever it is. “In order for us to do that, I’m really going to need, like, this is the area that I’m really going to need help on,” or, “I have found it really challenging to be able to get this data from your team. Is there any way we can work together and work out a way or a better process for doing that or something?”

Emphasizing that shared goal at the beginning, and then sort of showing that you’re actually aligned together to try and do the thing, is a really nice way for that person to not feel like you’re sort of pointing them out and like being, “Pete, your team has let me down again.” But really that like, “I’m in this with you, and I’m trying hard to work with you, not against you.”

Again, it’s quite subtle but it can be received so much more generously than sort of finger-pointing or, you know, bulldozing your way through. And, of course, it depends on the context and all sorts of other things but I think, as a general principle, that shared goal is a very, very good strategy in those sorts of situations.

Pete Mockaitis
And how about when we just need to say no?

Kate Mason
Yeah. I mean, there’s a lot of sorts of Instagram wisdom, right, “No is a full sentence.” And it’s like, no, that’s actually just not true at work. Right? No is very rarely a full sentence at work. Like, if someone asks you to take something on, you really can’t just turn around and say no, and expect to be respected collegially.

So, I think one of the ways, and again, it depends who’s asking and what it is. So, if it’s, say, your boss and you feel pretty beholden to do that, one way is just thinking through, “How do I show the transparency of what I’m currently working on? So, my boss has asked me to take on this other thing,” and you say, “Great. Here are the other four things that are on my plate for this week. How would you like me to prioritize that in relation to those?”

As in, “I’m just, again, reminding you that there’s a lot happening,” and then they might say, “You know what? Actually, it’s not that important compared to the other four. Put it here or put it number one,” and it gives you clarity but you’re also showing visibility and transparency about what’s happening.

If they then say, “Look I want you to do all five,” and you still don’t think that’s going to happen, then you say, “Look, I’m going to need to be able to drop one of these to get it all done by Friday.” So, like that’s a good way of sort of just showing capacity.

Sometimes it might be somebody from another team sort of putting something on your team or where you don’t really report into them, but they’re trying to push something onto you. Sometimes that’s really simple as, well, it’s not simple in practice, it feels really hard. But the simple rule could be like, “That’s just out of scope for our team. We don’t handle those types of issues. That’s probably better with this other function for these reasons.”

So, saying no is something that we often really fear because it feels like we’ll be unlikable or difficult or all of those things. But I’m much more about being clear about your capacity and being very transparent about that. What’s a goal and a non-goal is actually, ultimately, quite a likable quality because people understand and kind of see what your capacity is and can also demonstrate to build trust because you will deliver on the things you say you’re going to deliver on.

Pete Mockaitis
And your chapter four is called “Kill Your Confidence, Find Your Power.” Confidence is one of the top things we want. So, what do you mean by kill your confidence?

Kate Mason
Yeah, I’m trying to be a little deliberately provocative with that one. But I think when you tell somebody, “Hey, Pete, just be a little bit more confident,” it’s supremely unactionable and unhelpful advice to give anybody, because it’s a little bit like saying, “Just be healthier,” right? We sort of know what it looks like in the end as an outcome, but we don’t necessarily always know the process or what we need to do to get there.

And, counterintuitively, when someone’s told to work on their confidence, they immediately become deeply self-conscious because they’re hyper-aware of it and wondering, “Am I sitting in a confident way? Did I say that confidently? Did it look confident?” So, it takes them out of the actual interaction and makes them an observer of themselves, which, for many of us, can be quite debilitating.

So, what I say in the chapter is much more about, if you are concerned about your confidence and if you want to be more confident, the best way of doing that is focusing on your connection and your relational abilities. So, thinking about in that meeting with the person you’re about to show up with, “Are you actually listening to them?”

We say we’re listening, but we’re often sort of thinking about what we’re going to say next. So, are you actually listening and connecting? Are you being of service to them? Are you working out what they need and working out how you might be able to help them? Are you calm? Have you regulated your own threat responses that we talk about in the book such that you’re ready and open and creative and sort of nimble in those sorts of conversations?

If you can do all of those things, you’re actually ultimately demonstrating a confidence, but you’re not hung up on, “Is this confident? Was that a confident meeting?” and all those types of things. So, you’re actually doing, not thinking about. And that’s a very liberating thing for a lot of folks who actually find a lot more power in doing that.

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

Kate Mason
I think that’s a great summary. Really, this book is very much an invitation to try out different strategies and tactics. It’s filled with stories and anecdotes and my own experiences. And the idea is, if you see something there that feels like interesting or that resonates with you and might change your own way of leadership, to give it a try and see what works if you try to incorporate it.

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

Kate Mason
My favorite quote is by a British artist called Rob Ryan, and he did an artwork many years ago that I have a copy of, and the quote is, “My adventure is about to begin.” And I think of it all the time because it seems to be relevant daily, right? There’s always something else that’s happening and beginning and feels exciting.

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

Kate Mason
I often find myself quoting the potential and gender promotion gap research, which shows that women are promoted on experience, what they’ve actually accomplished, and men are often promoted on potential, what they might be able to achieve. And I find myself quoting that a lot to my clients and talking about what that means.

Pete Mockaitis
And a favorite book?

Kate Mason
That’s like asking me to choose a favorite child, but one of my favorite books is In the Skin of a Lion by Michael Ondaatje.

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

Kate Mason
I would probably say I have an AI email assistant that helps sort email, which is extremely helpful at the moment.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, tell us all about that.

Kate Mason
It’s Fyxer.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, I’ve got Sanebox and I’ve got Superhuman, but Fyxer is new for me. So, thank you. That’s exciting to check out.

Kate Mason
Nice.

Pete Mockaitis
And a favorite habit?

Kate Mason
Probably, trying to be healthy, trying to move my body.

Pete Mockaitis
And is there a key nugget you share, a Kate original quotation that folks are really vibing with and they quote back to you often?

Kate Mason
Yeah, I often share that good communicators can impart information, but gifted communicators can change the room that they’re in. And what I mean by that is that they can really influence and persuade and change the feeling of a room really effectively.

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

Kate Mason
Yeah, KateMason.co is my website, and you can find a link to my Substack or my socials from there.

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

Kate Mason
I’d love to think about doing a bit of a communications audit, right? Where did you get energy this week? Where did you spend it? Why might you want to mitigate the bad areas? And what might you want to do to amplify the way you’re feeling good?

Pete Mockaitis
All right. Kate, thank you.

Kate Mason
Thanks so much for having me.

Pete Mockaitis
Kathy, welcome!

Kathy Oneto
Hi, Pete. Thanks for having me.

Pete Mockaitis
I’m excited to talk about Sustainable Ambition. Great title. It seems like something we’re into here. But could you kick us off by sharing a particularly surprising and fascinating and/or counterintuitive thing you’ve learned about folks and ambition from all of your consulting, coaching, facilitating years and many, many clients?

Kathy Oneto
This is the thing I’m going to start with, which is often where I end, which is to remember that we’re human, and that it’s both natural as humans to be both ambitious and to have goals. It’s not a bad thing. We’re wired to do this. And also, in our pursuit of ambitions that we don’t always get it right and that we stumble along our way. And that’s the life journey. And to, really, end this journey, to be generous with ourselves as we navigate the ups and downs of pursuing what we want for ourselves in our lives.

Pete Mockaitis
And so, is it your observation that we tend to not do these things, we either vilify ambition itself or harden ourselves as we over or under do it?

Kathy Oneto
Ambition, in our society, can have a negative connotation. And so, for some of us, we can be judged when we are ambitious.

And what can happen over time is that our ambition ebbs and flows. And people are surprised by this and it throws them off and they start to judge themselves around this. And there’s a lot of angst that is associated when our ambition ebbs and flows like this, when it goes up and down.

And I think what I’m wanting for people is just to embrace a little bit of, “Yes, this is part of our human nature. We have these different tendencies that tug and pull on us.” I’d like people to find a little bit more joy, peace, and ease in this journey as they navigate their ambition over time.

Pete Mockaitis
Yeah, well, joy, peace and ease are things I’m into. Thank you. And you’re right, like, I don’t think I’ve ever really stopped to ponder this point until now. So, thank you. This is valuable already because I’m thinking… It’s so funny, ambition can be perceived as positive or negative by different people at different times, and ourselves at different times. And then it just kind of gets you wondering.

So many things are popping up here for me. I’m thinking, so we have the old aphorisms, like, “Oh, the early bird gets the worm,” as in, “Oh, that’s a good thing. You want to be up early to get worms. Otherwise, as a bird, you will starve if you don’t. So, you should, you should hustle.”

And then there’s this hustle culture like, “Yeah, that’s cool.” But then there’s also the backlash against hustle cultures, like, “No, no, guys, Big Tech is just pulling the wool over your eyes. They want you to think hustling is all that because they benefit from that if you’re the employee and you’re hustling.”

But then there’s the flipside as well, in terms of, like, “Oh, someone’s trying to be…” I don’t know if this slang is still in popular usage, but I’ve heard it before at times, like, “Oh, oh, he’s trying to be extra, and that’s not cool. It’s not cool to try to be extra,” or another word for ambitious. And yet, one of my favorite Onion articles, we’ll link in the show notes, headline: “Man’s Utter Failure in Life A Bit Of A Sore Spot.”

And so, it was like, “Ha, ha,” and that’s the joke. It’s like, “Of course, it’s a sore spot.” And so, we’ve got all of these conflicting messages from the outside, as well as I’m thinking about in my own world. I studied finance in college, and so we learned very firmly that the sacred duty of the firm is to maximize shareholder wealth.

And so, now as I’m doing my own business thing, it’s like that idea was just in there. And it was kind of a revelation, it was like, “No, Pete, you can see an opportunity to go get money and just not do it because you don’t want to. That’s okay.” And it was like, “Wait, it is?” And yet, if it was a different context, like if I were the CEO of a publicly traded company, that I kind of do have a legal duty to go after that and could get sued if I don’t. So, yeah, it’s quite easy to get all mixed up on this subject, Kathy.

Kathy Oneto
It really is. I studied undergraduate finance as well, so this is in my brain. I have an MBA as well. And I think what we all can benefit from remembering is we humans live amongst constructs. We make up these constructs. Yes, sometimes there’s math and science behind them, but there’s one person who determined that, “Why does a firm exist? To maximize shareholder value.” Well, there were other constructs before Milton Friedman said that as to why firms existed and how firms got ran.

And so, we can challenge some of these norms around, “Well, how do we define success? How do we define what ambition is?” And I think that’s where I’m inviting people to really reclaim that and to determine, “What is work? And what is worthy work? And what is worthy of your effort?”

And I think, in today’s culture and society, we often think it has to be tied specifically to monetization. And so much, you brought up technology companies, so much of this world of, like, social media, we kind of are called into, you know, we need to monetize ourselves. And so, this is an invitation to also kind of say, like, “How do you want to define work for yourself?”

And, yes, work that is your professional life is important, but there can also be other aspects of work that can really be soul-filling and keep you sustained as well, and can be important parts of who you are, and can really allow you to have more holistic ambitions than just think that our ambitions are solely about our professional life, which I think is something that people also get wrong about ambition.

Pete Mockaitis
Yeah, you’re right, and it’s fascinating. Now I’m thinking, this is so dorky, Kathy, but what comes to mind is one of my all-time favorite games that’s really shaped the way I think about the world and resources was from 1992 called “Master of Orion.” And you try to conquer the galaxy with your alien race and do resource management, yadda, yadda. And so, I just thought it’s the coolest game and sometimes I’ll still play it.

And I just learned that this guy, his name is Ray Fowler, just decided that, “Yes, this game is fantastic and the new generations need to know about it.” And so, he just created, by himself and with collaborators that he hired with his own money, to create a whole new version of this for the modern era called “Remnants of the Precursors,” and just gave it away for free.

He just spent multiple years of his life making this thing, because he thought, “You know what, this is an amazing game and the world needs to know about it and not be turned off by the old graphics or interface or whatever, and so I’m just going to do that.” And it’s just free.

And it’s fascinating because there’s some ambition and there’s no money whatsoever, and his motivations, as far as I could tell, I’ve tried to stalk him and learn, it’s just that, “No, this is an amazing game and the world should know about it so I’m just going to make that possible.” And he went and did it, and we’re enriched for him having done so. And we can all do that, we have permission to do so, and he seems quite pleased that he made that choice.

Kathy Oneto
I love that. And that’s what I would call a right ambition, right? It’s something that, for him, is personally rewarding and satisfying, I would imagine, and he felt was worthy of his effort. And I think more of us do this more often than we probably realize and recognize. And I think what’s important is acknowledging that and claiming that as something that is really worthy of your time and your effort.

Somebody who I interviewed on my podcast, we really went into this distinction between paid work versus non-paid work. And I, even for myself, have thought about my own work in this context, and really struggled because people ask me, “Well, why do you call that your paid work?” versus this is what I would call my service work or my creative work.

And perhaps only because I was asked, I was kind of like, “Hmm, maybe I shouldn’t be calling it that.” But in this conversation with this guest, it really became, for her, this distinction between saying it’s paid versus non-paid work, really allowed that non-paid work to be on equal footing with her paid work. It serves her and it fulfills her and satisfies her and, frankly, sustains her so greatly that is just as valid and just as important in her life to be putting her time and attention to those activities.

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, yes. Well said. Because if it’s not work, is it a “distraction” or a hobby? The other words we have available to describe such things are a bit diminutive in, like, “Well, of course that’s not as important as your job. That is of utmost importance.” So, there is some handy language pieces there, which I appreciate.

And I also want to talk about ambition, in and of itself. There are some negative connotations, there are some positive connotations. But, as I think of other words that are virtues, that we could all just kind of agree that, “Yeah, it’s a good thing to be fair or kind or patient or humble.” And, of course, you could take these to some extremes and that might be not ideal.

But how do you think about the word ambition and what makes it good or bad or virtuous? You use the words right and wrong a lot. Can you unpack a little bit of that?

Kathy Oneto
Yes. Let me start with the last thing you said because I think this is really important to distinguish. I talk about in my sustainable ambition method that, really, where I’m pointing people is to find more sustainability by aligning the right ambitions at the right time with the right effort. And what’s really important about using that term right is that, actually, I don’t think that there’s necessarily a wrong. It’s that right is making sure that it’s right for you.

Pete Mockaitis
But it could also be wrong for you if it’s not right for you?

Kathy Oneto
Perhaps that’s fair. That’s fair. That’s a good pushback, yeah. But the distinction, and what I appreciate about what you just said, was this is individual, it’s personalized. And I think where I’m trying to point people, or where I am pointing people, is, for a lot of our lives, we are influenced by external factors, by social norms, and these things guide us.

But I’m calling people to step into a self-authored mind, and starting to say, “What do I want for myself? How do I step into what I want and make this personal?”

And so, I appreciate what you just said, Pete, which is, “It’s wrong in terms of what’s personal for me. Meaning, like, I’m going after a should as opposed to something that’s not aligned to who I am and what I really want for myself.” So, I think that’s how I think about that context.

I also think that ambition is good. It is what motivates us to shape the things that we want for ourselves in our lives and what we want for the world, and it’s what pulls us forward. But it can also, I talk about this idea that there’s a U-curve of ambition, similar to the U-curve of performance, where if your ambition is too low, you can get into this, what I call stagnant zone. If your ambition is too high and you’re driving hard all the time, or you’re in this unproductive sense of striving, you can get into the severe zone.

And so, it really is about, “Well, how do I dial in my ambition to be kind of the right level so that it is sustainable for myself?” So, I guess that’s how I think about it in terms of this context of, like, “Well, how do you dial it in to be just right for you?”

Pete Mockaitis
Now, when you say U-curve, I’m already imagining I have axes and I have a U. Can you go into some depth here?

Kathy Oneto
Sure. So, on the Y-axis is sustainability, from low to high, and on the X-axis is ambition, from low to high. So, if you’re low ambition and low sustainability, you’re going to be in the stagnant zone. If you’re in the middle, around the right level of ambition, you’re going to be in the optimal sustainable ambition zone.

And then if your ambition is too high, you’re starting to get into this area of, “Okay, now my sustainability is starting to come down because I’m really, perhaps, either I’m not aligned to what my ambitions are, I’m too externally focused, or I’m really in the sense of unpredictable striving, where I’m really just driving hard all the time. I’m not taking breaks. I’m not prioritizing other aspects of my life that are important to me, that matter, that also help keep me sustained.” So that’s how I think about that.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. Well, so, as you describe this, this sort of sounds like a lowercase N as opposed to a U, if that’s the curve, as we follow. Is that accurate? The optimal would be a medium-ish level of ambition, which is maximumly sustainable?

Kathy Oneto
Yeah, the optimal level is, like, in the middle, right, if that’s what you’re describing. But the U is kind of an upside-down U. So that’s why you’re saying, yes.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay, cool. All right. So, there we have it. So, we have an upside-down U or lowercase N, if you will, curve, with the optimal level of ambition for sustainability being somewhere in the middle. And that makes sense, because if you’re going minimally, life is kind of, “Ugh, meh, whatever.” It’s kind of depressing. And if you’re going to the max, it’s like this is exhausting and anxiety-provoking and just a crazy town, not a great place to be.

So, I hear what you’re saying is that midpoint of ambition in the optimal is sustainable because it’s sort of like you’re challenged, it’s fun and interesting, but you’re not overwhelmed and you’re not bored. This kind of reminds me of Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi’s perspective on flow, with kind of any given challenge of the moment that you’re in.

Kathy Oneto
Right. And if you start to get into where that challenge is overly stressful, it starts to also take you not into that optimal sense of flow, right?

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. And so, a great thing you said earlier about not going after a “should,” which would just be the sort of, like, the socialized perspective of whatever people say just is the thing to do, like, “Oh, you should do that.” And I always, I’ve been criticized for taking things super literally at times, but, like, with your U and your N.

But when people say should, it’s interesting. They could say to all sorts of things like, “Oh, I should really get back into…” whatever, TV show, or game, or thing. And I often will directly challenge them, it’s like, “Should you really? Would that be optimal for you?” It was like, “I mean, probably not. No, I’ll just continue not watching that show. And that’s probably actually the right choice for me. Cool. Thanks.”

So, can you unpack a little bit? What is right ambition, right time, and right effort?

Kathy Oneto
So, right ambition is, again, I talked about redefining success based on your own terms. And so, this is really about shifting from looking at that external lens and starting to say, “What is going to be personally rewarding to me?” And it’s starting to look at what you want to do.

So, again, it’s shifting from that external to internal motivation and really getting clear on what internally motivates you. I point to four different areas in the book around this. What’s your vision? How do you like to give or contribute, which a more common lexicon that gets used these days is purpose? I look at values, and then also what you love to do, intrinsic motivators. And so, that’s really about, “How do you motivate your effort around what you’re pursuing?

Right time is about considering your life and work together, and is focused on choosing, “Well, where do you want to put your attention, your effort, your energy based on really what’s personally important matters most in your life and work now?” And so, this is shifting a mindset from doing it all to really focusing on doing what matters and helping you focus your effort.

And then, finally, right effort is about really being discerning about the level of effort you’re putting towards your ambitions and goals rather than just thinking you should be putting a ton of effort into everything. Ambition is often tied to this idea that it’s, like, maximum effort. But then it’s also being discerning about, “How am I really managing my effort and my energy so that I do keep myself sustained over time?”

So, this is really about managing your effort and energy, shifting from constant drive to really being more strategic about how you manage your effort.

Pete Mockaitis
Now you said right time was about doing what matters. Can you help me distinguish all the more clearly? That kind of sounds like right ambition, if it’s in conjunction, if it’s working with my vision values and what I like to do.

Kathy Oneto
No, this is great. So, those two things work together, in terms of like, so right ambition is like, “Okay. Well, how do I ascertain, like, how I either define success on my own terms,” or defining my goals and even checking like, “Are these things that I truly want to do?”

Right time is about, “Okay, great.” If I think about my vision for my life, I might say, I’ll take a very simple one that is’ve had an ambition or goal that I’ve wanted to do all my life, which is to live abroad for an extended period of time. I’ve not been able to make that happen in my life.

So right time is really about, “Well, what is most important now? How do I think about both, what do I have energy for now and what really is urgent for me to pursue at this moment in my life? What is my life context or what am I being called to do right now such that I’m making this a priority in terms of what’s important in my life at this moment in time?”

So, these two things do work together, but I invite people into, “Well, how do you think about your life in arcs and periods and thinking about horizons? And how do you think about what really is important now in this moment? And what might you shift out to different time periods? What might you say, like, ‘Okay, this isn’t a priority right now. I actually am going to put this on the back burner for now and allow myself to focus my attention on what matters to me at this moment.’?”

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. Understood. So, given the season and the context of what’s up, that will vary.

Kathy Oneto
And your stage of life as well.

Pete Mockaitis
Understood. Okay. Well, let’s talk about the right level of effort. What are some of the telltale signs where our effort is too little or too much?

Kathy Oneto
I think, in terms of if our effort is too little, it could be that you yourself are feeling like you’re stagnating, that you’re not making progress, the kind of progress that you want to see. It could be that, again, it goes back to the first thing I said, like, “What is your energy level?”

But, like, even if your effort isn’t the right level of effort, that may start to bring into question, like, “Huh, is this the right ambition for you at this time?” So, checking in with your energy level and whether or not you’re putting enough energy into something is a really great clue as to whether or not you’re motivated around pursuing something or not.

I think, on the other side, and the other extreme in terms of “Are you putting too much effort into something?” is, “Do you start to feel like you are ignoring certain things in your life that really matter to you and are important to you? Do you feel like you’re constantly driving hard all the time and you’re never taking breaks?”

“Are you starting to feel, you know, are there physical symptoms that you might not be operating at your best? Are you starting to have health problems that are giving you clues that you are potentially putting too much effort into all that you are trying to do?”

So, there are a number of different signals that you can be looking for in terms of this sense of, “Am I putting a little too much effort?” It can start to become like these signals that can be associated with workaholism, and there’s different factors around workaholism that can start to show up, which are not just behavioral. They can be psychological. They can be biological as well in terms of these health aspects too.

Pete Mockaitis
And what about those tricky situations where it’s, like, “I really want the results and outcomes of a thing, but I really just don’t like doing the work to get there”? For some people, that might be in the fitness zone, that could be in the business career finance zone. What do we do with these matters?

Kathy Oneto
There’s a couple of different ways that one can manage this. So, one is, “Is this something that, in terms of pursuing a goal, something that you don’t really enjoy doing? Is it something that you yourself have to do or is it something that you can outsource?”

And where you can get help and support so that it’s like, “Well, this isn’t my zone of genius. So, as this part of this ambition or goal, I’m going to hire out or have somebody help me achieve some of these aspects of what I’m trying to pursue that can actually help me reach that goal.” That is a possibility depending on what the ambition and the goal is.

Then there’s the other side, which is, sometimes these are things that we have to do ourselves. I’ve experienced this, too. And I think you have to question, “Well, how committed are you to that ambition and goal? And how much do you want that result?”

So, that’s one way of going at it, which is, “Okay, I am really committed. This is going to be the way that I’m going to pursue it. I’m going to go ahead and do some of these things that I don’t love because I really want to achieve that goal.”

I think the middle way is to challenge, like, whether or not you need to be doing the specific thing that we think we need to do in order to achieve that goal, and whether or not there is a middle way that one can find that is actually better aligned to who you are and what your values are.

Sometimes, again, it’s kind of like, “Well, this is the external norm of how something is achieved, but is there actually a way that I can achieve the same outcome and the same results, and do it in a way that is better aligned to who I am?”

Pete Mockaitis
Can you give us some fun examples of folks who have done just that?

Kathy Oneto
I would say that one of the examples is, I’m thinking about somebody who is, like, she has grown her business, and she’s not on social media. And I think the norm these days is, “Hey, I need to be on social media, and I need to be building a significant following.”

And she has taken a completely different approach that is much more aligned to who she is in terms of building a following through an email newsletter and through offering really valuable content. And that approach has worked for her, and also through building relationships.

And so, I think that we often see examples or think that there’s only one way to go about achieving a goal. And yet, there are ways to realign towards something that is better aligned to oneself. I’ll say, even on this, around my book, I would say I’m not a huge fan of social media either.

And so, a way that I am going about this that is much more resonant for me is to, what I want to be doing is talking about this topic as well as connecting with people and partnering with people to get this message out. And that’s a way that I am approaching this in a way that is much more resonant and aligned with my personal values.

Pete Mockaitis
Yes, that’s lovely. I’ve experienced that, people say, “Well, you’ve got to get on Twitter. You’ve to do all the things.” And there are numerous counter examples. I’m thinking about Cal Newport famously just doesn’t do much on social media. His books are doing great, and that works just fine for him.

So, that is a fine thought, to challenge the conventional wisdom. Although, to perhaps also be cautious not to fall for, I don’t know, snake-oil, get-rich-quick, the Ab Belts, which does your workout for you, kinds of things that promises of low-effort results are often misleading. So, I guess maybe that’s a distinction to draw there.

Kathy Oneto
I think that’s important. One of the things that I talk about with Sustainable Ambition, too, which may surprise people, is I believe in hard work. I think it’s just being really discerning about, “Where do you want to put in that hard work?” And also, being really discerning about, “How are you going to sustain yourself in the process?”

And so, I think that people may be naïve in thinking that there are these get-rich-quick kind of schemes, but I think, like, even something like get on, create a digital course, or get on social media, or do these various things that I think are quite common are often posed as being that you can have this immediate success, but that’s often not the case.

Pete Mockaitis
That, indeed, it is. So, when it comes to being sustainable, taking care of ourselves, resting, recovering, rejuvenating, do you have any pro tips on how you think about how much time we spend doing that, and/or if there are any research-backed approaches that are phenomenally efficient and effective at giving us rest, recovery, rejuvenation with a relatively modest investment of our time and other resources?

Kathy Oneto
I think what’s really important here is a couple of principles. One is to think about sustainability on different timeframes. And I think what can help people is to make sure that they’re, I mean, it sounds so simple, but the problem is people don’t do it, which is to think about sustainability on a longer time horizon.

I think why people can often get tripped up with work-life balance and that concept is that they think that, “Oh, I’m supposed to be in balance all of the time.” And yet, again, there’s going to be intense time periods. That’s a reality of life and how our life and work, work together.

And so, are you thinking about a broader time horizon, 12 to 18 months, and kind of ascertaining, “When am I going to take those down times? And when am I going to give myself those breaks so that I can keep myself sustained over time?”

And then the other, in the opposite direction, I would say, I think where people can get this wrong is thinking that they need to make all these big gestures in order to keep themselves sustained over time. And what I really advocate, and, again, it’s quite simple, which is, like, make sure you’re taking small breaks regularly. And the problem is that most of us don’t take those breaks.

And so, research by Slack a couple of years ago found that about 50% of knowledge workers around the globe don’t take breaks during the day.

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, wow, so they would know. Slack, they can tell you, “Slacking nonstop, guys.”

Kathy Oneto
Exactly. And some people challenge me on that, like, “Ah, people probably are taking breaks,” but often they’re checking email or they’re looking at social media or they’re checking their Slack. It’s not necessarily really getting themselves that psychological detachment that they need from work. And so, I think it’s being really discerning again about, “How am I taking these breaks?”

And things like a five-minute walk outside, five minutes of deep breathing, being in nature, going and talking with a friend, five minutes of daydreaming, are all these things that are quite simple to do and don’t have to take a lot of time, and yet, really, can help us reduce our stress in the moment and keep us sustained for a longer period of time.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. Well, I love these, and then you can get as wild and weird and unique as you want to with whatever you’re up to there. And with these five-minute breaks, I imagine there’s going to be some variation person to person, but do you have a range of just how many or how often are these five-minute breaks optimal for folks?

Kathy Oneto
Well, I’m going to borrow from a colleague, John Briggs, who wrote a book called The 3.3 Rule, which is based on some science that he has rooted in his book, which is this idea that we really shouldn’t work more than three hours at a time.

And there’s different studies out there. That’s a maximum, but there’s different studies out there around, like, the optimal amount of time that one should work. But what his 3.3 Rule is about this, like, for whatever amount of time you work, take a 30% break after it.

And so, you can use that to kind of have as a gauge in terms of how often one should be taking a break. So, no more than three hours and then taking an appropriate amount of break after that. Personally, one of my greatest tools that I really pay attention to and use myself is just really being tuned into my own personal feelings and my energy.

And I kind of follow my energy in terms of paying attention to, “When am I starting to get distracted? When am I starting to lose focus?” And that’s typically a clue for me that I’m ready for a break.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. Well, Kathy, tell me, any final do’s, don’ts, tips, tricks before we hear about your favorite things?

Kathy Oneto
I think sustainability really lives in being aligned to who we are, so get to know yourself.  The other is to pay attention. Things change on us. And, oftentimes, part of what causes that angst that I talked about earlier, Pete, is that we’re thrown off when things change on us.

And I think that we often need to start to plant seeds and start to try new things much earlier than we realize. And so, paying attention, starting to lean into curiosity, try new things. And then the final thing I’ll say is to remember that this is a practice. Oftentimes, people can be hard on themselves when things start to go off track.

And that’s a reality and also helps us start to understand where are the boundaries around how do we want to define sustainability for ourselves. So, I encourage people to just embrace the practice of it all and learn along the way.

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

Kathy Oneto
Yes, this is from Benedictine monk brother, David Steindl-Rast, where he said, “The antidote to exhaustion is not necessarily rest. The antidote to exhaustion is wholeheartedness.”

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

Kathy Oneto
One of mine is from Sonja Lyubomirsky and Laura King, which talks about how, if we focus on putting our attention on personal success linked to fulfillment, satisfaction, and happiness, that is more likely to lead to external success than necessarily the other way around.

So, if we are just focused on external success, that is not going to necessarily lead to us being happy. But if we focus on, what the studies have shown, generally, is that if we focus instead on what’s really meaningful and motivating to us first, it’s more likely that that external success is going to follow.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. And a favorite book?

Kathy Oneto
One is called What You Are Looking For Is in the Library. It’s a novel by Michiko Aoyama.

And then the second is the Monk and Robot books by Becky Chambers. One is called A Psalm for the Wild Built, and the other is A Prayer for the Crown Shy. And I just love these for the philosophical questions that they pose that are, for me, squarely centered around sustainable ambition.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. And is there a key nugget you share that really seems to connect and resonate with your clients?

Kathy Oneto
“It’s not sustainable if it isn’t yours.”

Pete Mockaitis
Can you elaborate?

Kathy Oneto
Well, it’s really this idea that, again, sustainability is rooted in what’s personally motivating to you and what really matters to you. And so, if you’re pursuing things that are external from you, that are a “should,” or what others want for you, are what society says, at some point, we often reject that and it’s not sustainable.

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

Kathy Oneto
They can find me at my website, SustainableAmbition.com, on LinkedIn, and on my podcast, Sustainable Ambition on their favorite podcast player.

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

Kathy Oneto
I just shared this a little bit earlier, but I’ll reiterate it, which is to really pay attention to how you’re feeling and, again, to be curious and look ahead, and start to think about what might be next much sooner than you think. So, always be learning, always be experimenting, always be taking good risk.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. Kathy, thank you.

Kathy Oneto
Thank you so much, Pete.