Couple Things with Shawn and Andrew - Vision Without Execution Is Useless (Pat Lencioni Explains)

Episode Date: April 2, 2026

Everyone tends to fall into one of two patterns: thinking or doing. In this conversation, Pat Lencioni explores the tension between visionaries and doers and why some people generate ideas but struggle to act, while others execute but lack direction. More importantly, he breaks down why real progress requires both. This isn’t just about business, but it’s about how we all approach work, goals, and life. Why do we get stuck even when we know what to do? And what actually helps us move forward? We hope you enjoy this one with Pat Lencioni and make sure to check out his books! https://www.tablegroup.com/books/?srsltid=AfmBOoq_hAIT4OVa4oGBoXJHizwaLBpo1AsOUUpZoqb64_xYdXSSvKRT Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

What's up, everybody? Welcome back to a couple things, interviews. With Sean and Andrew. Another wonderful guest today. We have Pat Lincione. That's right. This guy is a legend. Patrick Lincione is a legend.

He's written many books in the business realm. And it's all about teamwork, leadership. He really has some amazing insights. We'll link some of his books down below. But we talked to him today about ways of working. So he came up with this test that kind of identifies what your way of working is. It's really insightful, really helpful. It talks about like dreamers and visionaries versus doers.

And even in our own life, we started understanding people differently and better because of this. One of my favorite takeaways of this interview was actually realizing in the middle of the interview. Because of Pat, what our strengths and weaknesses were and how we were actually utilizing the wrong things within our business. Patrick is amazing. He's a local here in Nashville. And we're super grateful he gave us his time. We hope you learned something today. Without further ado, Patrick Lincione.

It is an honor to meet you. I have read your books. I think it was actually the first business book I read was yours. You know, I love hearing that. A lot of schools are using it now. Because I wrote them to be short and to get people's attention.

They're all stories. And you learn that way. Yeah. And so more and more schools are using that. And the kids, my youngest son is a sophomore in college and his friends will call, I'm using your dad's book in my business class. And it's so funny.

Wow. I think there's a lot of things we can talk about. I specifically want to talk about teamwork and the concept of that because we've been having some fascinating conversations around what does it look like to have a healthy team to be a team player. And then also correlating that into the team that is a family. And I know you've done a lot of work and thinking around that. So I'm excited for the most important team. Also, the book you that you brought in literally is like the definition of our life. But it's the three big questions for the frantic family. We're a frantic family. Well, I can't wait to talk you about it too. Now knowing your working genius types are and what my wife and I went through, we look back and we go, man, if we had known this back then, it is crazy. Okay, so we said this off camera,

but I just took your test and I am, I can't even remember it. Invention and discernment. Yes, ID and Andrew, of course. Is Galvanizer in Wonder? Which you said is extremely rare, which you will now tell me for the rest of eternity.

The rarest type, And one of my sons is that type. And it's really hard to get your head around it because they are like, yeah, let's do it for everything. But then they're all so deep. And they're going, but wait a second. Maybe I don't know. Yeah. Yeah, exactly.

We, sorry. We have a funny, not even a joke because it actually happens. He is incapable of having any free time because his brain moves so quickly into this wonder world. he is always starting something new. Right. And it's the wonder with the galvanized, because the galvanizer's like, let's do it.

And then you're like, but wait a second, is this, because discernment is like this gut feel you have that says, I don't know if that would be the right thing. And you're like, but let's go.

And I usually get told after the project has started. And I'm like, wow. Not sure that was a good one, but now we've got to see it through. Is that how you got on the special forces thing? That one is actually reversed. I was all for that one.

But that's how the podcast started. So the funny story behind the podcast is I had just, we had just had our first kid. And I think I was three days postpartum. We had just gotten home. And he said, babe, I have to tell you something. I started a podcast. And I was like, okay, with us.

And I was like, cool, never talked about this. And it charted, but it doesn't have any episodes. So we need to start filming. We like launch a trailer. It was like number one on the charts. I was like, let's go. We're doing it. Let's go.

That's the, that's the. And three days postpartum with our first kid, I wanted to kill you. I was like, great. Anyway, how far we have yet to come? Yes. Long way to go. So explain the working genius and what our types. Types mean.

Okay, so I love all those assessments. I've done them for years. My wife taught me Myers-Briggs years ago. And so we use it in the practice and working with. with clients, but five years ago, by accident, we discovered working genius. And that was because I was going to work every day and getting frustrated.

I love my job, I love the people I work with, and I love what we do. It's my own company, it's so much fun, and yet I'd go to work, and for 20 years, I'd get grumpy. And I was like, why am I grumpy? And so one day, I went from one Zoom call where I was really excited,

I was doing a leadership development with a bunch of priests, and I was like, this is so fun. Then I had to have a different Zoom call and tell some people they weren't doing a good job. They needed to work harder. And then I got to go to have another meeting to talk about a new podcast idea. And I went from excited to grumpy to excited. And the woman, Amy, friend of mine, sitting next to me, said, why are you like that? And she didn't mean it in a mean way. And I was like, I don't know, but I want to figure it out. And that day I sat there. And for the next four hours, Tracy, my friend was there. We realize that there's six kinds of work. And if you're doing the

wrong ones, you're not going to be happy. And of those six kinds of work, and whether you're building a house, starting a podcast, running a company, planning a family vacation, whatever you're doing, any kind of activity project requires six different kinds of skills. And we all have two that we love. It gives us joy and energy. We could do them all day and it's fun. And there's two that we crush us. Yeah. And two in the middle that we could do for a while, right? And what I realized is I was getting drawn out of my genius every day that I went to work. And it would make me really grumpy. And I didn't know why.

I'd be like, why do I get like this? I thought, am I manic or something? But it was because I was being asked to do something all the time. And I thought, well, since I'm the leader of the company, I should do this. And we realized, nah, none of us are meant to do all things. And then we didn't know we came up with a new model. I thought it was just explaining why I was grumpy. And then we went home and wrote it on.

the whiteboard of my house and at work and people started using it and CEOs heard about it and they were like, oh my gosh, this explains everything. My wife and I were like, this explains why we used to fight around so many things and so much it had to do with we didn't understand how God wired us. Yeah. Because everybody has things that God made us that we love to do and things that we hate to do. Literally rolling in this podcast, I love this. This like is my favorite thing ever to do. sit down and have these conversations and learn. But rolling into this interview this morning, we had to do organization and like we're cleaning out closets and stuff. It was the, I honestly

all, I felt like I had an existential moment where I was like, I don't know, like this is terrible. And I feel personally attacked and weird. I feel shameful. I just had all these weird things. But I love it. I was being fueled. This is like, weeding out all the clutter and like organizing. And she does not like this part of it, so. No. Stop it. But like you don't have a problem going, we don't need that. We don't need that.

Oh, in a second. Split second. I'm like that too. But since my wife, who is in charge at home, she doesn't throw away anything away. That's it. And she's got wonder. But maybe we might need that someday in the future for five minutes. And I'm like, no, we, you know, so we'll get another one if we have to.

Exactly. And it's like, she wins in that. Because the wonder, she's up there in her head. like, oh. Yeah. It might be helpful if you could explain the six ice and then maybe a quick little eye on each. And I'll do it in the order in which work kind of happens. And from 50,000 feet, our head up in the clouds all the way to our feet on the ground. Love it. Okay. So the first genius is wonder. Every new thing starts with somebody going, literally they say like, oh man, people with wonder ponder things

and their heads, they're just thinking like, I bet there's a better way to do this. You know what might be cool? Or I wonder if our customers are happy in a business. Or maybe, and my wife is always wondering. And it's so funny because it's a gift. Most people that have wonder have never really been rewarded for it. Because in school, they don't go like,

oh, you're in second grade, you're wondering in class. They're like, you're not paying attention. And my wife said she grew up, she was just like, would jump on the trampoline all day long. just ponder things. And people are like, what's wrong with her? I have three sons with wonder. Wow.

And we realize so much is going on up there. They're just constantly thinking, but you don't see it and you don't know what it is. And jobs don't reward it very well. School doesn't reward it very well. And yet every new idea comes from somebody wondering, asking the big question. And the woman Amy in my office said,

why are you like that? She was curious. She didn't have an answer, but she was wondering it. The second genius is invention. You and I have this. When somebody wonders, I wonder if there's a better way to do this, we're like, ooh, let me figure it out. Yes. I'll come up with an idea.

And we are not worried about it, about not having a lot of context. We're like, I'm going to come up with something, even kind of out of nothing. It's fun. And so that's the genius of invention. The first two wonder and invention take place at like 50,000 feet and 40,000 feet in the plane. Head up in the clouds, big picture stuff. Well, I'm just going to say right here, my wife is a W-I. Oh, wow.

So she just lives up there. Yes. And I'm going to go to the end of the story here. When she read my book and she was part of the process, but when she first finally finished reading the book, we were on an airplane and I said, how was it? And she turned to me and she had tears in her eyes.

She said, it's wonderful and I'm so pissed off. Oh. I said, why? And she goes, because I've been living outside of my genius for the last 20 years. And we knew it. We didn't have a language for it.

She was doing things because she thought to be a good mom. You had to be good at things. And I would come home and I'd say, outsource that. Get a friend to help you with that. She's like, no, but other women are good at this. Well, my wife lives in the world of wonder and invention. And she's so creative and wonderful. She's not great at the finishing and the details. Neither am I. So I'll tell you a story about that in a second. So wonder and invention of the first two. This is called ideation. Then comes discernment, which is your other and mine too. I love it. We love to curate and see things and make decisions.

and it's about instinct and intuition and pattern recognition. Yes. And we can look at something and people go, is that going to work? And you go, no. And they go, why? I don't know. I think I've seen this before. I'm pretty sure this isn't.

And that gut is right. A woman that works with me, Tracy, she has great discernment. And she has since she was a child. Her friends, when they were little girls, would say, that's Tracy. They would say, ask Tracy what we should do. My wife and I will be at home and it'll be like, should we refinance our house? Where should we go on vacation this year? Does this shirt look good for this interview?

And the answer is always, ask Tracy. Her gut. It's not that she's like an expert on home refinancing. She just has good gut. And it's a gift. And so discernment is really important. And then the next one is galvanizing. That's yours.

This is the one I don't have as a genius. And I was doing it every day at work. And it was crushing me. Galvanizers love to rally the troops. They love to get people. to do things they don't want to do necessarily, but they think they ought to. Like, come on, let's do it. They love to sell. They love to inspire. And they, they don't mind doing it again and again and again. They don't really get burned out on it because it's kind of fun. You were a captain

of the football team. It's the classic kind of captain like, come on, let's go. And it's like, didn't you say that yesterday? Yes, and I'm going to say it tomorrow. So galvanizing is a genius. Okay, we've just gone through the first four. Now we're down to about 15,000 feet. Notice we haven't talked about the last two. You guys don't have either of the last two. No. And those are the implementation, the final steps.

And there are people that God made that wake up every day and say, please just let me implement things. And we're like, please no. And we need them in our lives. And so the next one is called enablement. Okay. Which is a good kind of enablement. it's not enabling somebody to do something bad, like take drugs or anything.

Enablement is about coming alongside others and helping them do things. So when somebody says, I need help, people with enablement are the ones that say, I'm there, what do you need? They volunteer right away, and they love being the helper. And it's a gift. They're not just nice. It's a gift. Like when you're in the hospital and there's that nurse and every time you ring the bell,

they're like, what can I do for you? It's God gave them this gift. to respond to the needs of others and it makes them happy. I don't have any of that. Now I'm a follower of Jesus so I want to help others and I'm a devoted father of four boys

so I'll do anything for them but it's not easy. Where some people are like, yeah, you interrupted me, you need something? What do you need? Yeah. And as a mom, we have this guilt thing like,

oh, I'm supposed to be that way. And not all people are like, that. And it is literally one of my frustrations. It's one of the ones that it's hardest. So my wife will say to me, I need your help this weekend. And literally right away, I'm like, oh, okay, what is it? And if it's in the area of invention or discernment, I'm like super excited. And she's like, we need to reorganize the garage. And so right away, I go, can I design it? She's like, no. And I'm like, and then I'll go, are you sure we need to reorganize? She goes, I don't want your discernment. I want you to stand in the corner. When I hand you a box, you're going to put it where I tell you to. This is like death to me. And you know something? Sometimes I just have to do it. But now she knows that it's death to me so she can go, it's going to be a big favor. I'm going to ask you to do it. I know you hate this, but thank you. Whereas in the past, I would feel guilty. And you used the word guilty before. Understanding your working genius is to avoid unnecessary guilt and shame. There are things we're not good at and that we don't like to do. And that's okay.

we still have to do them. I was watching one of your podcasts with John Deloney, a friend of mine. And he was talking about when he became a parent. And he said, yeah, I thought you had to change one diaper a day. Yeah. Like, yeah, hero, I did one. It's like, they pooped again. Yeah, like a minute later.

There are parents that are like, oh, yeah, I don't, I'll do it all day long. And not me. I want to counsel my kids. I want to give them advice. I want to come up with a new idea. So enablement is a genius. the last genius is tenacity. And tenacity is there are people

who God give them the gift of finishing things. They love the last stage. They're like, yeah, I'm not actually gonna rest until it's done. I have zero of that. I don't have that either. None of that. So my wife and I don't either.

And if we had known that when we got married, oh. But it's interesting because we don't not finish things. I was going to say, How does that go into competitiveness, though? Because... So I was a competitive athlete. Having the idea of like I want to make a D1 team,

then having that like drive of I have to finish that. That feels different. That's more like personality on a higher level as opposed to the actual tactics of the work. That's what Working Genius is about is the actual doing. Yeah. So the concept of it is great.

And I want to win or I want to win or I want to make the team. I've written 14 books. And people go, you must have tenacity. It's like, no, I have none. If it weren't for Tracy and other people around me, I walk out of the room and I'm like, it's almost finished. I think it's good enough.

I literally wrote a book where I needed to finish it. And I was like, and then a bomb goes off and they all die. And people said, that's funny. And I know, that's really what I wrote. And they were like, get back in there because that sucks. I will say, though, even in gymnastics, you and you and I are the same. If I don't have a coach, I won't work out.

That's my wife. Yeah. And other people are like, I got this on my own. But if the coach shows up, I'm fine. Yes. I'll do whatever he says. But I can't come up with it. And most of those coaches, for you, would be like they had tenacity.

Yeah. You're like, make me do the last one. Yeah. Whereas some people are like, no, in fact, they can't rest until they do the last one. So get this. Here's the story. My wife hates that I tell this. I'm going to tell it anyway, because I love my wife.

And I love this about her too. So I come home one day from work. and this is when we lived in California. And I walk in the door and the lights don't go on. And I'm like, you know, I thought California power outage. I'm like, hey, Laura. And she's like, yeah. And I think the power in the neighborhood's out.

She goes, nope, the power's on in the neighborhood. I look outside and I see the neighbors have power. And like, hey, you're right. The lights aren't working. And she goes, I know. I said, should I go check the breaker switch? She goes, no, the breaker switch is fine. I'm like, well, what's going on?

She goes, yeah, they cut off our power. And I was like, what? She goes, yeah, we didn't pay the bill. And God bless her. She took one for the team. She paid the bills. I hate doing that. And I'm like, they cut off our power.

Don't they usually send you a notice before, if you haven't paid the bill? She goes, oh, yeah, they send three notices and they're around here somewhere. That would be me. So, but, and you know, you have friends that would go, your power cut off? Yeah. Oh, my gosh. They would be like mortified. Yeah.

And now, Laura and I look back at that and go, that's who we are. Yeah. Yeah. And you guys, there's going to be crazy things that happen like that. And when they do, go, God didn't give either of us tenacity. That's okay. We felt so guilty and judged. We were like, oh, we can't tell anybody this.

How embarrassing. Now, in the meantime, Laura's inventing a board game or I'm writing a book or coming up with all these new ideas because that's how God wired us. We're not good at the other stuff. Yeah. I have two questions. The first is a thought. I remember, I mean, up until last year, Sean's discernment, as you were describing it, really felt like a kick to my gut every time she would say, we're not going to do that.

And I have this idea I'm pumped about. And it's like, why don't you just rain on my parade? I feel like I have grown to maybe reposition that and reframe that more as, oh my gosh, I'm so thankful for your discernment. after we've had enough reps now of me pursuing an idea that was not a good idea and it felt just like so much friction initially but now I'm like I guess to your point trusting more of of that gut that she has and it's like honestly it's really fun to be teammates with her something that he's saying that makes really a lot of sense you've made it make sense I always hated doing like the discernment thing and like raining on a parade but the

galvanizing part, he would do everything. So if there was any excitement rallied around it, it's like, I knew it was going to happen. It was going to happen within 24 hours. So I'd be like, can I just say, I don't think it's a good idea? And then it would be party pooper and everything. But it makes so much more sense now because you do anything your mind comes up with, which is something I have never in my life been able to do. That description you just made right there was right out of the book. We had a guy right after, we announced we put this out wrote to us and said i took the working genius and until i did that i thought my wife hated me and he goes and i i don't mean that jokingly i really thought she was

kind of against me because every time i came up with a new idea she would explain why it might not work and he goes i was convinced that she was against me he goes on valentine today we took it and we went over it together and he goes i realized that's how she loved me she was like i want to help you make this work, but I have to tell you if I see a problem. And he thought, and it's like, why are you raining on my parade? And it's a beautiful thing because now, and then the galvanizing thing, isn't it great? He's like going to go talk to everybody and get it rolling and he's not going to be tired. And when somebody goes, I'm not sure they're into it. He's going to go, I'll get him into it. Oh, yeah. And it's a beautiful, this is what marriage is.

It's like appreciating that it's, I don't have to feel guilty for not having the gut feel. I can rely on my spouse. I mean, we've come together as one. But what's interesting is if there's six working geniuses and only two spouses, which I think is how it's supposed to be, none of us have everything. We need others. My wife for years, poor thing, I would say, hey, Laura, because she stayed home to raise the boys. And she did Bible study and all these other stuff, which she loved. But the home details was killer for her. And I would say, why don't you outsource? Let's get somebody else to do the bills for you. And she would just go, no, that would mean I'm a failure. Because why do my friends, they're fine at it? And this comparison being the thief of joy, it's like, no, celebrate what you're

good at, celebrate what you're not good at. Try to outsource as much of what you're not good at. And then when you have to do the other stuff, just go, it's not going to be perfect and that's okay. And it's not only that comparison is a thief of joy. And so like, let me try to force myself to do something that's not in my working genius. When you do that, it prevents the concept of team. It's like, what, someone else is sitting on the sidelines waiting to get called in, you know? It's so true. I remember when I wasn't a G, and I had to galvanize all the time. And I had a guy in my team, a young guy like you, who did like galvanizing. I said, you're the chief galvanizing officer. And he goes, but I'm too young. I haven't, I'm not one of the leaders. I'm like, no, no,

it's a gift. You doing that will be great for the company. It will be great for me. Now, I can't abdicate all of it. I have to do a little bit of that. But letting other people live into their geniuses is a beautiful thing. But when we think we're supposed to be everything to all people, I work with a lot of pastors. We have some common pastor friends.

And so many have called me and said, I thought I was a fraud. One guy said, for 20 years, I've been a pastor, and I thought it was a fraud. I said, why? And he goes, I couldn't write a sermon to save my life. He goes, my friends can walk in the woods and come up with a three-part series in 10 minutes, and I would, like, grind. And then I'm like, so we look at his working genius. He had no wonder or invention.

I said, how do you do with, like, people in grief and counseling and serving the poor? And he goes, oh, I love that. Like, yeah, you know, your friends that are good at writing the homilies, those sermons? They're probably not great at that. But we think we're supposed to be everything. Perfect parent, perfect pastor, perfect leader. We all, I think I love, we all suck at something. And let's figure it out.

Like the six types of working genius could also be the six types of things we suck at. And there's such a relief in that. So do you encourage with the knowledge of knowing what you are good at, offloading the two that you're bad at? Or do you encourage working on those? Not working on them. Great. Now, acknowledging it.

So I love the story of Michael Jordan. When Michael Jordan first got in the NBA, he was obviously great at defense and going to the basket, dunking the ball. amazing. It wasn't not a great shooter. And right away, people said, we should make him work on his shooting in the off season. And they're like, no. Tell him to just keep getting good at what he's good at. It'll allow him to not grind on shooting and he'll get better at it. When we grind on the things we're not good at and decide, it's like I have kids and like imagine you have, you guys have your three kids. And one is really organized and one's really creative. And you go to the creative one,

you go, you need to become more organized. And you go to the organized one and go, you need to be more creative. And suddenly, they've diminished their, the strength they have, and they feel like they have to grind on the other. And I say, go to the child that's not organized and go, you know, in life you're going to have to be organized sometimes. It's not your thing. God loves you.

We do too. It's probably good for you to know that you're going to have to do that sometimes, but don't worry about it. They're going to be so much more likely to do that. versus feeling like I'm supposed to be good at something I'm not naturally good at. But does that make sense? Differentiate one of my life models is be comfortable being uncomfortable. So how does that concept fit into what you're saying?

I love the question. Because yes, you should be comfortable saying, I'm not good at this. I still have to do it. I'll do my very best. My very best will not measure up to another person's very best. and I can be uncomfortable in that. It's kind of like me. I didn't get a pass on changing diapers

and clean the house. But we knew we were never going to be great at it. So when people came to visit, if our house was a little messier than the people whose houses are perfectly cleaned when you come over, we had to be okay with that discomfort. Does it also apply for the discomfort

that can come with like exploring the depths of my gift of like, oh man, Michael Jordan's a great shooter. So he needs to do that in an uncomfortable way So that he can really push the limits and be excellent Yes, yeah even in your strength Yeah I mean because think about when you were a I mean you were a young a gymnast when you were very young

But when you were very very young there were still things you had to work on But you had a natural gift at it but you had to push yourself to be uncomfortable to keep getting better But the worst thing would have been to say you should be a basketball player And be uncomfortable pushing yourself to be a basketball player and it's like It's not who I am. It's something we talk about a lot with, like, kids. And when I speak to kids on sports and, like, their passion, there is something different about when you find what you love,

even the discomfort of pushing yourself outside of, like, a new level or to a new progress point, that's fun. Yes. The pain actually is great because you love doing the overarching thing. Yes. And it's, this is the beauty of a working genius, and I love it. When you're working in your genius, even pushing yourself, even being uncomfortable, it doesn't crush you. I can go home at night after 12 hours of work and my wife will go, man, you're energized.

What's going on? And I'm like, I ID it all day. We were coming up with ideas and evaluating them. It's like, it's so much fun. I can come home from work after three hours and be just wrecked. She's like, what's wrong? I was like, oh my gosh, I just had to do all the kind of stuff I don't like. And so even the discomfort is actually pretty rewarding when it's in the areas that we love.

That doesn't mean we always get to stay there. But please outsource some of the E.T. and parenting. Do it now. Do it now. We have luckily. Yes. My mother is a finisher in every sense. Yeah, I thought of your mom first thing too.

She wants to serve and she wants to finish everything. Yeah. And it's funny. She's an E.T. probably. Yeah. It's funny that I'm the exact opposite. but she is the greatest gift to us. And you know what's interesting?

Because you guys talked about this before. It's like people say, what types are good to be married or to be together? It's like, it doesn't matter. It's like, do you appreciate them for what they are and do you give them grace for what they're not? Because two people like in the workplace,

an ID like us can work with an ET. And they can either say, oh, I love that you do the things I'm not good at. And I celebrate that. And I like to do things you don't like to do. or you can go, why are you anal? Well, why are you flaky? And it's really easy for an ET

to look at the idea and go, oh, they are with their head in the clouds again. You know, what are you going to make of that? And the other person go, well, gee, you're just so worried about all the details and what are you're going to make of that? And it's like, no, let them lean into who they are.

What I like about the working genius in comparison, you know, we've taken the inigram, we've done Myers-Briggs. We did, we like do counseling and we did premarital counseling, which we took like 20% of that. those I have a harder time with than this because this just feels like you're describing work and not me you know what I'm saying yes and then it's like I don't know it's easier to

digest and it feels truer and more broadly applicable than some things that's a personal and her has a hard time being labeled yeah but do you have a Myers-Briggs type do you know what you are I don't okay you do but yeah it's yeah T. T.J I want to say I have no idea okay so I love the Myers-Briggs. I love all the things. Disc. I've used them all. Yeah. But this is different because it really is your feet on the, like what you do. Yeah. And it takes literally 12 minutes to fill it out. Yeah, it was really fast. And you look at the report and you go, yes. Yeah. And there's such relief that comes from it. Does it describe everything? No, it doesn't describe your motivations, your bigger picture motivations and your personality. We love all those tools. This is the one. And I didn't sit down to

do this, I was just like perplexed by my own frustration. So when we saw this, what we realize is people have gravitated toward this and it's growing very fast because it can be applied so quickly. And you know, when you're married, I love, and I like when people talk about marriage and you're, how you appreciate each other and all those things, but most of your time you're doing stuff together. Whether you're on vacation, I know you guys have had some of that stuff, whether you're remodeling a house, whether you're putting on a podcast or making lunch. you're kind of co-working most of the time. And so this actually fills in that gap

because my wife is an idealist and I'm an idealist. We still have to vacuum and do laundry. And so how do we do that? Is there, you mentioned CEOs, you mentioned pastors. Have you seen patterns like statistical probabilities that a CEO would be X and Y on the working genius type? Not really, and we've been looking at this. We're really looking at the data.

And people ask that question, what we find is that the best leaders are the ones that are self-aware. Because I talk to a leader who is an E.T. like your mom. And he's like, yeah, I don't have gut feel or creativity. But I make sure that we deliver. But I need to surround myself now, I realize, with people who are good at the things I'm not. So anybody can be a CEO or anything like that. But when you are, know what kind you are and then fill in the gaps with people who are better than you.

here's a great story. That's really encouraging. That is like really encouraging because I think some people are like, oh, CEOs are always the charismatic type or whatever. And they like put labels on what they think that position entails. And then it prevents them from stepping into that if they don't have those qualities, you know? So totally. Yeah. Be who God made you to be. And and then teamwork is putting people around you that fill you the gaps. So I worked with a team once. This is one of my favorite stories because it's so wild. multi-billion dollar technology company, right, in Silicon Valley. But they had not had a new product in 15 years. But you can survive by selling your old products and all those kinds of things. But they were really frustrated by it. And this was the company where the CEO was an ET. So he's like, we're going to do things right. We're going to be detail-oriented.

We're going to follow through. We're going to have our budgets done. But there was just not a lot of creativity going on. This should be X-Rox. I'm just going to throw that out. No, no. I would love to tell you. Okay.

We did them working genius with the team, and they looked at it, and nobody on the team had wonder or invention on the exact. Not the head of technology, not the head of marketing, nobody. They were all like doers, except one guy had invention as a genius, and he was their lawyer. Wow. The chief legal, and I'm not sure you want your lawyer to have invention. They were sitting there, and like within the hour, they said,

why don't we give you responsibility for new technology development and acquisition? And the lawyer goes, I went to law school. It doesn't matter you like this. He goes, I'd love to do that. Two years later, I checked up on the team. And I was like, oh, no, they fired the lawyer. He's not the lawyer anymore. They took him out of that completely.

He was working on technology because it was his gift. So we tend to think, what did you study? And here's what you should do. And it's like, no, everybody has gifts. Cody on our team likes to say that the working genius makes job descriptions so much less important. It's like, no, who are you? Because one head of marketing doesn't look like another head of marketing. And one CEO doesn't look like another CEO. One mom doesn't look like another mom. Be the mom you're meant to be based on the gifts you have. Wow. I just learned so much just in that.

I know that's only one tiny bit of this interview. But yeah, you guys have the first four covered. Yeah. I wonder, I have an idea. I think this will work. Let's go. Now we have to find someone to do it. your kids. Yeah. Not you're going to need, I'm sure, I'm sure if you look at the people around you, the help of the podcast, they would probably look at this and go, we like to support and finish. Yeah. So you've written books like the five disfunctions of a team, the ideal team player,

this book, Working Genius, and the concept of that is all about teamwork. And like, essentially, I feel like it unlocks a certain aspect of teamwork. Team is involved in all of it, family, everything. Why do you care so much? about this topic. So I played sports as a kid and I wanted to be in the NBA but as you can see I'm short. I was a distance runner and I played basketball in high school but then I wasn't going to be a pro athlete. Yeah. But I loved teams and I know that I learned so much by working with people on teams. And when I got into the workplace, I worked at a company that was really smart but they didn't

work well together. And it was really dysfunctional. It was political and internally competitive. People were competing with one another. And it wasn't pleasant and they didn't get near as much done as they should. It was a management consulting firm. And it was like the best firm in the world to work at. But for me, it was miserable, which gets back to working genius. They wanted somebody to do what they were told them to do it perfectly. And I was like, how about a new idea? They're like, we didn't hire you for new ideas. But what I realized, I went to a client. I'm 22 years old at time. And I had done all this data analysis and we'd spend a lot of this company's money. And we presented the ideas and they weren't interested in it. And we found out that they were just

hiring us to compete with another department within their company that had hired a different firm. And it was all about politics. And I remember I said to the partner, I said, why don't we help them with the politics, the behavioral stuff? And they said, we don't get paid for that. And I said, that's fascinating to me. So that's when I decided I one day wanted to help companies with the human part of business and teamwork is at the heart of that. Just an interesting question. When companies are hiring and you have a title and you have someone who comes in with a resume and it all looks good, would you recommend just stripping that down and saying actually take this test to make sure it actually matches? 90% should be cultural fit.

So whatever the values are and working genius fit for the job you want them to do. Because people will go, we need a new head of marketing. And so somebody will interview and they'll see, oh, they've done marketing here and here and here. And I'm like, yeah, but what kind of marketing person do you want? Do you want one that's going to come up with new ideas or one that's going to execute on the plan you already have? Well, the same person won't be good at both of those. So what we say is describe the job that you're hiring for in terms of the geniuses that

would be best or and the and the frustrations that wouldn't like they can't be frustrated with this and then go when you interview people go out and find that out now there was case law that says you're not allowed to use assessments in hiring because it can be biased yeah I don't believe it I don't agree with it the the lawyer who argued that case to the Texas Supreme Court that became the law land came to because he was running a different team and he was the CEO of this company we use this and he was like, crap, this really works. And he was using it and giving people feedback. This is not about assessing somebody with bias.

It's actually about assuring that you're not going to hire somebody that's going to hate the job and that you're going to make their life and yours miserable. So I think doing this, whether you give them the assessment or just show them the six things and say, we're looking for somebody who's got a lot of invention and discernment or a lot of tenacity. And if you do, you're going to love this job. people know right away like oh no don't hire me i should have turned my job down after college everybody said it was the best job in the world and it was the highest pain job it was a miserable job for me i just took it because everybody said it's a great job not for me fascinating do so

my working genius applies whether it's like in an occupational format or the family format or any domain absolutely yeah and there's things about any job that will be frustrating to you yeah so like if somebody, I like hiring people, not positions. So like, I, same. Yeah. Yeah. And it's really true. Hire for fit, train for skill.

Now, if they have to be a, if they're doing brain surgery or flying a plane, okay, you have to have technical skills. But most of the people I've hired, the schools they went to and what they majored in had nothing to do with it. It's like, it was who they were as a person. So we have some core values, and I wrote a book about it called the ideal team player. the three things that you look for in a team player is humble, hungry, and smart. And sports teams have really adopted this.

Humble just means I'm not an ego person. Hungry means I'm going to work a little harder than the minimum, or maybe a lot harder. And smart is not intelligent. It's like, I know if I'm pissing you off or I don't say things that I'm not clueless about interpersonal stuff. Dave Ramsey has probably sold more of those books for me than anybody because he says, they just use that to hire people now at their company. They have a humble, hungry, and smart conference room at their company.

So when I hire people, I say, do you love what we do? And are you humble, hungry, and smart? I'll figure out how to use you after that. Then I'll look at their working genius and go, what should we have them do? Most people, though, have an opening in a job, and they just hire somebody that has experience in that position, but they don't really know if it's a good fit culturally or in terms of their geniuses. So 90% of it, I think, should be cultural fit and genius fit.

I played football at Vanderbilt. Yeah. And the current quarterback there. Oh, that guy's a dog. Yeah. It's amazing. I'm trying to think of him and the effect that he's had on that football team, which historically has not been good.

They beat the number one team in the nation last year. Their top 10 this year. I'm going to the game. My sins go to Auburn. Let's go. I'm going to the Auburn game. Let's go. It's going to be amazing.

I'm trying to, I heard the saying that the difference between a patriot and a traitor is just a matter of date. And I'm trying to think, does that apply, does that apply to confidence and arrogance as well? Because in his case, he walks out on the field with Alabama. And it's like, you know, the pregame interview is, yeah, we're going to be in Alabama. Is that arrogant or is that confident? And how does that play into that ideal team player of aspect of humility? Do you know what I'm saying? Yeah. I think that there's a fine line between arrogance and confidence, but there is a line and it's an important one. I think it's more than time probably, although that would be a great conversation. In leaders, we talk about humility. And humility is tricky because humility is, I know that I'm not more important than you.

The CEO of a company knows that he or she is not more important than the person who cleans the floors at night. They're children of God. They're all equal. You are not a more important person. So the quarterback at Vanderbilt, hopefully he goes, I know that the kicker, or the third string offensive lineman or the guy that's cleaning the towels in the locker room, I'm not more important than they are. However, my actions have more weight, are more important. So he, as the quarterback, knows,

I have to be confident. I have to be out there. I have to demand the attention to the team. I have to tell a guy to shut up in the huddle sometimes. That's not a violation of humility. It's him realizing that's my role. the problem is most leaders who are successful start to think that they're actually more important

than the people they lead. So you have to hold these things in tension like I'm no better, like, and you know, you think about your favorite athletes. They actually think, I think Peyton Manning actually honors I've met him before, everyone around him. I realize I shouldn't mention him

because you went to University of Tennessee, but right now. We'll forgive it. But he played for the cults, which is his favorite. my hometown. Ah, Pat McAfee. Love the guy.

Okay, but anyway, so, but, but he, he, he, he, he, he, he treated people, but he knew that there was a time in place for him to be that confident, what would look like overconfidence on the outside. So the quarterback, Pavia for Vanderbilt, I don't know what he's like in the locker room. My guess is though he treats people pretty well, because that's why they want to follow him. My guess he's also willing to step up and be, and be the target. Yeah. You know.

There just is some inherent tension with, like, I'm even thinking Jesus being a servant leader, but he's like this forefront character. How do you, there's a fine line. And I guess knowing where to walk that is... Well, Jesus is a tough one because he's God. He probably had all six. I thought about this.

I think he had all six working geniuses. The only person I will say that. Mary even, not all the working geniuses. That's awesome. But I think that when you look at Jesus, my favorite thing to talk about, because it's the center of my life, he is, that think about how he treated different people.

He was like really forceful when he talked to the hypocrites, the Sadducees and the Pharisee, would say, no. But he didn't do that to the sinners. He would be gentle. He said sin no more. He didn't affirm them in their sin, but he knew when to be confident and strong and when to be gentle.

and I think that's what we all need to do as parents, as leaders. It's just so hard. Have you ever met, this is transitioning topics a little bit, have you ever met an incredible corporate leader who is not a great leader of family or vice versa? And if there's a disparagement there, why would that be? I've heard you guys talk about that on your podcast before. The answer is no. In the short term, yes.

I mean, if you, like, okay, they might have, in a couple years, turned a company around or made a bunch of money. But long term, no. We did an article, I mean, a podcast about, and I wrote an article about the Kiss Cam CEO. Oh, yeah. That problem starts at home. Yeah. The problem is you go to work and people honor you and they dress up for you and they laugh at your jokes and they tell you how wonderingful you are. That's what happens in the corporate world, you know, because leadership in that way.

Yeah. Then you go home and your wife doesn't do that or your husband because they shouldn't. Yeah. And then you go, well, those people actually treat me better and kind of, it's more fun when they do that. And then you start to resent the fact that when you go home, your kids don't, I mean, you know, I'd come home from a speech. And I'd, and my wife would go, Connor needs home with help with algebra and Matthew needs help with this. And, and it's easy to go, well, people out there treat me really well. and that's a lie.

And when people buy into that lie, maybe they can run that company for a little while, their life usually falls apart. And so I think the answer is no. Now, let me re-propose another question. It doesn't matter, does it? Because if a person's life at home is falling apart and their company's doing well,

oh, that's so sad. And I have worked with CEOs. I try to witness to them in my own way, but it's just so sad because you know that's nobody on their deathbed says, oh man, I'm glad I'd be IPOed and I got wealthy, but I didn't love my kids enough or my wife enough or my husband enough.

I mean, it's so difficult because the feedback that you get in the business world is so much more tangible, so much more measurable. And at home, I don't know, I think about all the time, someone challenged me. I think it was our mutual friend Josh. He was like, try to be as strategic at home as you are with work.

And I'm like, okay, I like that idea. And then I go think about it. I'm like, I don't know how to freaking do that, dude. Like, what does it mean to be strategic with the family? I don't know. Okay, I'm the worst marketer in the world. I'm going to actually put this book. And I can do that because this is the least selling book I've ever written.

And yet the people that have read it are like, oh, no, this book changed your life. The problem is it's about families, not about business. And people don't read as many books about that. And when we published it, I said, put it in the business section because it's a business book about family life. but instead they put it in the family section next to breastfeeding and Montessori schools or something, you know. But here's what I wrote this book

because I said, why is the most important organization in my life, my family? Why am I not running it with the same intentionality that I do my company? I mean, I have off-sites at my company. We have a strategic plan. We actually check in on things.

And my wife and I would just wake up every day and go, how are we going to get through today? And even talking about meetings, I wrote a book called Death by Meeting. and I compared it to home life. Meetings and companies, people hate them because I call it meeting stew. And that's where you sit down and you just say,

okay, let's talk about the future, the past, tech, details, ideas, competition, and they're terrible. And we know this because we do it at home. So my wife and I are in the bathroom and we're brushing our teeth, two sinks, you know, brushing our teeth the same time. And we're like, so who's picking the kids up from school? Should we have another baby?

Where should we go on vacation this year? Do you think one of our kids has a discipline problem? Gotta go. And the next day I'm like, how's it going? She said, I'm pregnant. I'm like, I thought we were having chicken. You know, it's like, did we decide that? Life is chaotic at home.

And we need to put, we can't do it the way we do in a company. But in this book, it says, it's called the three big questions for a frantic family. You have to answer three questions for your family. And you could do it on a date with a crayon and a white tablecloth, paper tablecloth. and when you answer those questions, it provides the strategic clarity you need so that when some parent goes, hey, is your son going to play

on the underwater travel lacrosse team? And you're like, I don't know, should they? You guys are going to be coming into this. And it's just going to be, I don't know, are we depriving him of his future? Should we? Yes. No, is that too much? If you define these three questions, when people say to you,

do you want to buy a lakehouse, do you want to be on this team, do you want to go do this? You can say, no, that doesn't fit our family. But you have to define it. Interesting. And then you have to meet once a week just to go, how are we doing? It's really simple. But it's, it's, we, for so many years we lived life, like, what's in the email inbox

and what are the kids' friends want to do? Yeah. And we just didn't know how to make decisions. So we tried to do this. Yeah. I already feel that in life, though. And it, I feel like we tried to be strategic. We do, like, weekly check-ins to go over the calendar, like, everything.

but it does feel like in life right now everything's coming to a head because we've started kindergarten we've changed schools friends are starting extracurriculars are starting PTO or not PTO Parent

Whatever PTA PTA there we go all the things And it's like I don't know which path we fit on And it's like do we fit in all of them How do you have enough time? Oh and you guys are high profile

So the decisions you make, people are going to go like, but they didn't do that, you know. And then you start feeling guilty about, I just want to be home with my kids. So the questions you answer to this is like, why did we get, why did we, were we attract? What are our core values essentially? And that sounds like, well, they're faith and all. Yeah, that's true. And that's critical, critical. But what is it that you guys have in common that drew you together that you are not going to violate?

Like in my family, Laura and I said, we're going to be creative because we were both creative and our families didn't get that. And now that we've done the working genius, we understand where that comes from. Forgiveness is going to be really important because we're messy and we're going to need to forgive each other. And the other one was,

oh, what was it? I didn't know I was going to talk about it. But we actually said those are the three things. Oh, standing up for what's right, even when it's not popular. So I remember when one of my sons got in trouble at school because he stood up for a kid who was being bullied. Good for your son.

Yes. Wow. But he got in trouble and we were like, no, that's, that's, that's, you did, we're proud of you for that. So those were our values. And then we said, what's our strategy? See, there's actually a strategy for a family and it's not too difficult to come up with. But it's, it, you define the parameters in which you work. So when a decision comes up, you can reflect back on that strategy and go, oh, no, that, that wouldn't make any sense to do that.

Because emotionally in the moment, somebody's going to say, do you want, does he want, do you want an extra, um, coaching for your son? You know, you want him to be on the five times a week, six-year-old baseball team? And you're going to go, no,

but, and you're going to look at that and go, no. Here's my problem with core values. Help me sort through this. Your problem. Everything you just said,

well, it's hard. We have them. 100%. We've worked on them. Relatlessly. But how many do you have? Five. Okay, that's good.

That's not too many. Okay. everything you just said are like yeah i like that too i like creativity i like staying out for what's right so what is it oh i love this pick some that you don't have that are good that's when you know they're real like other people had core values and i thought oh i like that we don't have that i guess it's not that you don't want that one family we knew one of theirs was gratitude now it's one of the things i struggle with gratitude is so important we didn't say we're anti-gratitude but we just said that's not naturally one of our core values. We're going to aspire to that. It's aspirational, but it's not

the core thing. So you're going to add other things. One of them said it's sense of humor. We have these people. They're hilarious. And we're like, well, we want to be funny. I think I'm kind of funny. But it's like, no, let's let that one be. Because if everything's important, nothing is. That doesn't mean you're rejecting it. Yeah. It just means what is the thing that's kind of crazy about you? And ours was, when I met my wife in college, people didn't stand up and say, something was right or wrong. And it drove me crazy. And my wife, and it was especially hard for the women in college at that time. And my wife would, I just remember meeting her and she was like, that's wrong. I just don't, can't agree with it. And I was like, she rocks. To this day, I'll remind her,

remember why I first, what I first fell in love with you was that you had the courage. And she's still that way. And when she comes home and goes, I think I made somebody mad because I stood up. And I was like, yeah, that's going to happen. But you're a wonderful person and you had the courage of your convictions. I love that about her. So, and the creativity thing, we're constantly like, we should do this, we should do that. Even when it, you know what a core value, Jim Collins talks about this, you know it's real when you, when it goes wrong and, I mean, like it goes too far and you're okay with that. So what are you willing to like, standing up for what's right, being creative and forgiving,

she'll tell me all the time you over forgive, you did it again. And it's like, we'll take it. Right. So I hope that helps. It doesn't mean the other things you can't say we want to have because you're going to teach your kids to have all the best virtues. But what is the thing that makes this couple and this family unique? I agree with that. I'm stewing over like the decisions of extracurriculars and you even said your kid being on the travel team. We made, we felt it in our bones. Our daughter fell in love with ice skating. And she was going once week. And she loved it. And it was a big community thing. And she got scouted. We fell for it. And it just ruined it for her. She was like, I'm done.

We didn't like traveling that many times a week. We were like, this doesn't feel like our family. It was a blessing. It was a blessing. And you were a gymnast. Gymnastics and ice skating are very similar. Very. And the fact that you came through this doesn't,

sometimes as parents, we go, well, I have to have them go through the same thing. And sometimes it's like, oh, part of the blessing is that I don't have to. I was a distance runner. I was a distance runner because I had wounds. Distance running is miserable. But if you want to be good at something and you're willing to work hard at it, then you can do it. My son Matthew, who works with me, I love him, he ran the 800 meters and he was in fifth grade.

And he did pretty well. And after one of the race, I said, how do you like that? And he goes, I don't like this at all. He said, you don't have to do it ever again. and he doesn't. But it could have been like, well, I came out through it okay. I should put him through that too,

but I realized for me it didn't fit. Now, he said, I love it. It's so much fun. For us, it was interesting because it's this fear. You mentioned it. You touched on it earlier, but this fear of like not fostering their abilities is really scary to us.

And so I felt this guilt of, this doesn't feel right for our family, but is it right for her? and it wasn't until we went through it. One of our core values is our family is togetherness. Right. And we weren't together. She was on the ice.

A baby was at home. Andrew and the third would be somewhere else. And we were so disjointed that I was like, it actually feels like it's hurting the family and not helping. Yeah. And it would have been really hard if she'd said, but this is all I ever want to do. Yeah.

So it was a blessing that she said, oh, not too much. But then there's other things she can do. Yeah. ice skating probably it's a very specific thing but there's other things like that that might allow the family to do that she loves to go ice skating if we're all together yeah if we're all on the ice together yeah what she really is majoring in his family yes as you described your son's instance at school i think it's fascinating to think of core values as like what are the things that you celebrate as a family or um yes the stories that might play into the

the core values are the ones that you remember and like that work well you know like because they're your kids have done a ton of great things like good grades or sports accolades or whatever but the one that you just mentioned and that you remember top of mind is standing up for what's right you know what's saying so even though there's a sea of good there's only a couple pillars of great that you have he's a good question ask her that wonder yeah he's like i mean it's really true and it's so fun to have you do that because then we go, oh, let me see, you know, that's a great thing. Because I haven't thought about this before. But so say it again.

The, just the, the stories that magnetize around one concept, I think, are, is like, you know what I think it is? You know what I think it is? Because they go a little bit against the grain. Yeah. Because, yeah, we want our kids to get good grades and everybody puts a sticker on their car and, you know, and then you want. But that's kind of the regular thing. It's when they do something that's upstream a little bit. Yeah. That is counter to what the world tells them to do.

Yeah. That's when you know they're doing something. For years, I did whatever my coaches, parents, teachers, bosses told me to do. But it's not until you go, I'm going to do this and nobody is really encouraging me to, but I think it's the right thing to do. Those are the ones that stand out. I'm going to go on a tangent one more time. Also, I could talk to you forever. We've already talked an hour, which is wild.

Oh, we're in an hour? We're at an hour. Dang, I feel like five minutes. We're just crazy. Wow. So we'll have to keep our last questions very brief. But I think to answer his question a little bit on top of that is it's like your self-fulfilling prophecy, whatever your core values of your family are, those are the ones that are going to stand out a lot more.

Yes. If straight A's are not a part of your core values and your family, they're probably not going to mean a lot. But our daughter, we said yesterday was the best day of her life, one of the best. She turned six yesterday. I was in tears all morning, dude. was like torn out. I can't believe of a six-year-old. I know. Life's slipping through your fingers. Oh, we're going to talk. We'll talk about that. But on top of that, she got recognized in

front of the entire school. They literally brought her up, and this was, this had nothing to do with her birthday for being kind. And having an extra active character. And one of our core values as a family is kindness. And I was a blubbering, disastrous mess. I could care less if she gets a nay in life. Like in any, in any, you know, subject. but for that, I was like, that was a gift from God. You cried, which never happened. I was a disaster. You know why?

You know what that crying was? That was just gratitude. Oh, yeah. That was just like, God, this is the greatest gift. I mean, isn't it? Yeah. Truly. Because those are tears of like joy beyond joy.

Yeah. I'm on my son Michael, who's a dear, he's a sophomore at Auburn now. He was in school. Somebody said, I asked my grandson, who's the most, like Jesus and they said Mikey. Oh my gosh. Yeah, I mean like I can feel myself. Mikey won awards and other things too, but that's the, that's the one that you're just like, and then the world takes over and they start to go, but what about this?

And my daughter got a thing for this. And that's where you just go, God help me to keep my eyes on the prize. It's a real challenge. You know, the biggest challenge you guys is watching your children suffer is the hardest thing in the world. And you're in anticipation of that right now. You know what I mean? And you said you were crying because your daughter's sick. So I started worrying about my kids leaving the home when they were born. Yeah. Literally. And anticipatory fear is so useless. Because I want to tell you guys something, all of my kids are out now. It's still so much fun. I don't feel like I've lost them. I feel like it's new and good. But I was terrified of it. Terrified.

of it. And what's crazy is when it finally happened, it was like, I didn't want them not to want to go. So just enjoy it. Just know this. You don't have to fear it. Thank you. I appreciate it. You can call me once a day if you want. I can remind you. He's a sad. He cries daily over our babies, which is so beautiful. Yeah. I was journaling the other day. I was like, I feel like I'm going through constant grief as a kid's, like, graduate from one face to another. And then I lost my dad almost three years ago and it's like you think about grief and it's actually not been like a negative thing it's been really beautiful in a lot of ways right and i i feel that tension too with our kids where it's like i i know the next phase is going to be great but i just love this one you know what i say like

you know so i was i had therapy this morning i have a great guy that i see and and he was we were talking about how you can have peace even in the midst of suffering yeah and so the thing is you can go yeah i'm sad that she's getting older but it's not a anything to worry about. It's when we start to go, oh, what am I supposed to do about this? And it's just like when your dad passes and you can go, yeah, of course, I'm really sad. But suffering and sadness are a part of life, it's when we think that's a cause for despair. Yeah. Well said. And so it's let yourself feel that sadness, but don't think like, oh, no, what about the next one? Yeah. It's wonderful. I love the work you do. Honestly, such an honor to have you on the show.

I, um, we will do a part two. I would say, please come back. Oh, I'd be glad you. I live not very far now. Great. Great. I feel like I try to separate, um, our life is so wrapped together where like we work together and we co-parent together and our work is about family, like all of our podcasts

and kind of about. And so in my mind, there's certain things that I'm trying to see if it's a fair judgment or appraisal. Like, hey, is it, can you be a good leader in work and not be in family? these questions I would like to kind of tap into more, but I just love the one project that I've been working on for years is this East, East Family Playbook is what I call it.

So like, what makes an East and East, which is really fun to kind of tap into family lore and like I'm trying to document family recipes and health issues. Talk about mentors. Galvanizing? Yeah.

He's got every person from the past five generations in on this project. Yeah, it's really fun. It's really fun. But it's a fascinating line, too, to think about, okay, how can I establish, and this plays into the working genius, but like, how can I be so confident in what makes an east and east and not create a gap of otherness or estrangement between what makes you different to? It's like, how can I be great and also make room for your greatness or how can I own what I'm supposed to be doing and also make room for

yours. I feel like, you know, ooh, that's going to be fun to talk about. Yeah, okay. So, sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I left us on that. Because you know, you know what this doesn't, yeah, I know. He's a deep thinker. Yeah. This is not about virtue. Mm-hmm. So you could be a horrible person and have two of these geniuses. So what you're, we're bonded by virtue and the common desire to be good. This is just how God wired us to how we might display that. But we can use it for good or for not good. Wow. So it's not an other. It's a together. It's like, it's like, really. really the, it's diversity. It's like we're, but diversity only works

when there's something in common. So in a family, it's like, what do we all have in common? Now we can be different. And a company is that way too. What are our core values? When diversity is absolute, nothing bonds people together.

That I'm going to think about for a long time. Thank you so much for your time. Oh, what a blast this is. Such a pleasure. For those listening that want to check out some of Pat's books, highly recommend it.

We'll link them all below. Oh, oh, and I've, And I'm supposed to say that if people want to take the assessment, you can go to working genius.com. There's two Gs in the middle, working genius.com. And if you put in the code, a couple things, you'll get a 20% discount. It's all in the show notes down below. Thank you for that.

Thank you. Sure. Check it out.