Good Life Project - Scott Shute | The Full Body Yes

Episode Date: August 5, 2021

How does a kid who grew up on a farm in the midwest, who struggled with mental illness on a level that led him to contemplate taking his own life, end up a rising star in industry, author, and the Head of Mindfulness and Compassion at mega tech-company LinkedIn? More than that, how does he end up deeply present, at peace, and alive with possibility and joy? That is the trajectory of today’s guest, Scott Shute.For more than two decades now, Scott has been on a quest to weave together the modern workplace and ancient wisdom traditions, blending a lifelong spiritual practice and passion with practical leadership and operations. It’s been the expression of something akin to a “download” he got early in life to change work from the inside out. His approach has been “mainstreaming mindfulness” and “operationalizing compassion.” Which has not always been an easy sell. Scott is also the author of The Full Body Yes, and one of the powerful voices and teachers behind the InnerMBA, a nine-month online immersion for entrepreneurs, executives and employees who believe business is a force for good in the world, and want to achieve success while making a difference.You can find Scott at: Website | InstagramIf you LOVED this episode:You’ll also love the conversations we had with Tara Brach about finding equanimity and compassion.-------------Have you discovered your Sparketype yet? Take the Sparketype Assessment™ now. IT’S FREE (https://sparketype.com/) and takes about 7-minutes to complete. At a minimum, it’ll open your eyes in a big way. It also just might change your life.If you enjoyed the show, please share it with a friend. Thank you to our super cool brand partners. If you like the show, please support them - they help make the podcast possible.My new book, Sparked: Discover Your Unique Imprint for Work that Makes You Come Alive is now available for order at https://sparketype.com/book/ Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

How does a kid who grew up on a farm in the Midwest who struggled with mental illness on a level that led him to contemplate taking his own life end up a rising star in industry, author, and the head of mindfulness and compassion at mega tech company LinkedIn? More than that, how does he end up deeply present at peace, mindful, and alive with possibility and joy? That is the trajectory of today's guest, Scott Schute. For more than two decades now, Scott has been on this quest to weave together the modern workplace and ancient wisdom traditions, blending a lifelong personal spiritual practice and passion with practical leadership and operations. It's been this expression of something akin to a download

that he got early in life to change work from the inside out. When he first got it, he didn't even know what that meant. And somehow it has revealed its meaning and its intention and its energy over a period of years. His approach has been mainstreaming mindfulness and what he calls operationalizing compassion, which has not always been an easy sell in big business. Scott is also the author of The Full Body Yes and one of the powerful voices and teachers behind the Inner MBA, a nine-month online immersion for entrepreneurs, executives, and employees who believe that business is a force for good in the world. Thank you. The Apple Watch Series 10 is here. It has the biggest display ever. It's also the thinnest Apple Watch ever,

making it even more comfortable on your wrist, whether you're running, swimming, or sleeping. And it's the fastest-charging Apple Watch, getting you 8 hours of charge in just 15 minutes. The Apple Watch Series X. Available for the first time in glossy jet black aluminum. Compared to previous generations, iPhone XS or later required, charge time and actual results will vary.

Mayday, mayday. We've been compromised. The pilot's a hitman. I knew you were going to be fun. On January 24th. Tell me how to have this conversation. As we sit here and have this conversation, we're in this really interesting window in time and culture and society. And you have this position as a head of mindfulness and compassion at LinkedIn, which I want to deconstruct a little bit, but it's fascinating to me on so many levels, not the least of which is that if we go way back in time and we sort of like think about you as a kid, a young kid growing

up essentially, you know, like in farmland in Kansas. It sounds like you are wired profoundly differently in that season of your life. I think so. I think so. I came across a spiritual teachings. I would say that I had a spiritual awakening when I was 13. And I started a contemplative practice, which is, let's just say, a little bit different than my peers at 13, you know, surrounded by farmland. And yeah, I was just wired differently. I thought about the world differently. I felt like a fish out of water. I felt like a city kid trapped on the farm. I felt like a little bit like I was awake while everybody else was asleep, but just different. I didn't really have words for it then.

And when I was about 18, I was trying to figure out what to do with my life. I've been thinking about this a lot since I've kind of come full circle. But at 18, it felt like I had this black or white path. On the one hand, I was going to become an engineer like my big brother and join corporate America. But the movie Wall Street had just come out. You remember this one? Gordon Gekko and Rita's Good. I'm of that generation where that became this iconic rally cry for so many. Right. And so in my 17 or 18-year-old brain, that's what corporate America was like. I was going to sell my soul to the man or sell my soul to the devil by joining corporate America. But I was good at math and

science, and that was a way to make a living. But the other side, the white path on this T-bone intersection, was I wanted to move to New York and be a singer, go to Broadway. I'd been the lead in my high school musical. And it also felt like following my spiritual bliss, right? And I was thinking, how do you do both? How can you do both? And I couldn't decide what to choose. And there were a lot of practicalities and a lot of stuff. And in contemplation one day, I was kind of having a conversation or a frustration with the thing or the divine or whatever you want to call it. And I got this inner nudge, kind of this inner knowing and what I now call the full body yes. And I knew what to do. And it came with this message. And the message was,

well, maybe you can change work from the inside out. I'm like, I'm a 17 year old kid. Like what, what does that even mean? And so I kind of tucked that away. You know, I tried to be a good person throughout my career. And I, I wake up whatever, 30 something years later in a position where, ah, wow, I have some small chance of doing that. And the thing is, it turns out it wasn't, I don't think looking back, I don't think it was a black or white path. I think no matter what path we choose, we end up learning the same lessons just in a totally different context. So there's, I think there's a lot in there. There is, Let's deconstruct that a little bit. You know, one of the things that you shared is that something happened at 13. Yeah. Talk to me a

little bit about life before 13. And then I want to dive into what actually happened. Sure. So I grew up on a farm, which is, it's a family farm that my great-grandfather homesteaded in the 1880s in North Central Kansas, right on the border of Nebraska. And it's super rural. It's an hour from a movie theater, hour from fast food. And I loved it. I was roaming with my black lab on the farm, just doing whatever I wanted to as a kid, as a 10-year-old or whatever. It was peaceful. It was idyllic. We went to this little country church, which was filled with 35 or 40 people that were remnants of a couple generations after the place had been homesteaded by these kind of hardy pioneers. And I always felt this connection with the divine, right? For me, it was being on the land or seeing the way the light filtered through the trees or

just being out with the animals or the cycles of growth. And I loved our little country church, but it didn't really resonate. The way we were talking about the divine just didn't really resonate with me. And so I started asking all these questions of my parents and my pastor that I didn't particularly like the answers to, and they didn't probably particularly like the questions. But life was good. I enjoyed it. But it was also solitary and a little bit isolating. Yeah. I mean, it's interesting to hear you describe it that way because I know also you write about that season of life with a different lens. When you write about it, some of what comes out is also a sense of being wound extraordinarily tightly, a sense of being hyper-focused on

achievement and struggling with mental health. Yes. So as a teenager, look, I'm the youngest of five and I grew up wired, really, really wired or programmed to compete. And I'm good at lots of things, right? At some point I looked at all of my brothers and sisters and each of them are extraordinary in their own way. One is several are great at music or great at sports or great at academics or whatever. And I decided I was going to be better at each of them at their specialty. And probably in order to get attention, right, to get external validation, especially from my parents, especially my father. And what I'd say is that's an extraordinary strategy for motivation, but it's a terrible strategy for happiness. And so I learned to achieve. I learned to win. I was

wired to win. But what I discovered was that no matter how much I won, no matter what I achieved, no matter what finish line I ran across and threw my hands in the air, there was nothing on the other side. You know, those habits followed me into adulthood and still trying to achieve, achieve, achieve through career, trying to find that magic when really I've come to learn it comes from the inside out. But as a teenager, that was incredibly isolating. And I felt very

different and felt very isolated. And because of that, I wondered, wow, am I just here by myself? Like I felt so alone. And I had suicidal thoughts. I struggled with depression and anxiety in that moment. And it took quite a bit to get over that. Yeah. I mean, I would imagine, because it's interesting, because part of what you're describing is this hyperachievement mindset, which can be very isolating. And at the same time, this other sense of something bigger, sense of spirituality, sense of the divine, which in itself at that age, and I would imagine especially with sort of like the culture and the community you grew up in, that alone, I would imagine would also have the potential to have an othering effect. And then you sort of, you compound these two. And I wonder if you had this really strong sense of othering or strangeness within the community in which you grew up in. I felt that way. I don't know if anybody else saw

me that way, to be honest. I mean, as teenagers, I think we're so in our own heads. We think everybody's looking at us and everybody's paying attention to us and we're the only ones on stage. And the truth is probably no one else is looking at you at all, right? You're just another member of the community. But I certainly felt that sense of othering. I certainly felt that sense of being different than everyone else. So what happens at 13? I mean, because you described that as this, you know, sort of like a flag in the sand to a certain extent. Sure. So, I mean, tactically, I came across a different spiritual path. You know, one of my brothers had been touring America trying to make a living as a rock star. He came back to the farm to run the farm with my dad.

And long story short is he had found a different spiritual path. And when my sisters and I kind of finally pinned him down and asks, you know, what's going on with you? Like, what's different? And he told us, I just started weeping. Just weeping for like 45 minutes as he described the system of beliefs. And what I'd say is it was my truth. I don't need to proselytize for anyone else, but it fit me and the things I always believed and the connection with the divine I always felt I had. Here was someone, a path who had written it all down. And for me, that made me feel not so alone. It made me feel like, oh, here's the thing I've been looking for. And it felt like not that I was looking for since I was 11, since two years ago in my

young life, but it felt like something I'd been looking for lifetime after lifetime after lifetime after lifetime, something I had had before but had been separated from, like two parts of a magnet that had finally kind of snapped together after being separated from a long time is how it felt. And that began a path of self-discovery, of self-awareness, of discovery of the divine, the divine within me, and gave me a model that helped me make sense of the world. Yeah. Which is an amazing thing to happen at that age, especially. But when it happens, you have this conduit through the vehicle of your brother sort of like bringing this back to you. But, you know,

I would imagine also the community that would support you in the pursuit of this and the ability to deepen into those teaching isn't next door at that point in your life. No, no. In fact, we had to hide it, right? My parents thought we had joined a cult. They wanted to have us deprogrammed. We very much had to just not talk about it. And so, you know, I studied, I did my practice in silence, you know, and the first thing I did when I got to college was to find the local group, you know, and that was the first time I actually got to experience it with other people that were not my brother or immediate family. So I noticed that the language

that you're using, you're intentionally sort of like couching it without describing what is this path. And rather than asking you like to say like, what is it and tell me about it, I'm actually, I'm curious about a deeper question, which is why, why do you feel the need to, to not say this is the thing? Yeah. Because in my current role, my current role is I'm the head of mindfulness and compassion programs at LinkedIn. And, you know, I'm trying to, my vision for the world is to change work from the inside out in two ways by mainstreaming mindfulness and operationalizing compassion. Now, to do that, I want to be seen as very neutral and to be seen as secular at work, right? Because one of the challenges we have with mindfulness in the workplace is that people view

it as a spiritual thing. Oh, it's like, oh, I can't do that because it's XYZ religion or it's some Eastern thing. And I'm trying to be, as you see, very intentional about being clear on, yes, I come at this thing from a spiritual perspective, but everything we do at work is completely open to everyone. And I'm trying to find the language that is relevant and open and builds bridges for everyone instead of building walls.

Yeah, I mean, it's an interesting approach and it's also an interesting imitation and challenge for you just on a personal level. Like it reminds me to a certain extent of years ago when I was first exposed to the work of Jon Kabat-Zinn, who, you know, existed within a sort of scientifically based rationality based medical model. Like that's, that was his role. And, and he has this awakening to a lot of Eastern philosophy and Buddhism and which led him to the path of mindfulness. And yet when he said, how do I bring this to a population, in his case, to a population

that was really medically oriented on the practitioner side and also to patients, where he saw this profound benefit of the tools and the practices. But he also kind of knew that if he couched this as, I'm going to teach everybody Buddhism, it's sort of like, it's just not going to go down, especially like 20, 25 years ago when he first started to think about bringing this to the world in a way that landed as most accessible and inclusive. Absolutely. I mean, look, in the world, we're talking about diversity, inclusion, belonging, right? We're talking about compassion.

None of those things need religion. None of those things need a defined path. In fact, for me, if I boil down all the paths I know about, they are essentially, you know, the divine is love. Become more loving and you'll become more divine. And then we mess it up. We say, oh, it has to be this teacher or this path. You have to believe this or do this on this day of the week. It's like, come on. All of it at the root is the same. And so I'm trying to go to that center point where all of these things came from and use that as a basis to include in business,

to include in the workplace, to include in the mainstream. So I'm fascinated by this because when you look at any, so the tools are powerful and the ideas are powerful and expansive and abundant and inclusive and relevant to everybody and anyone. And yet, whenever you see any of these practices offered outside of the context that you're offering them? It's sort of like mainstream world of business and work and life, just like accessibility in the context of life. You do always see them bundled with sort of like these three parts. There's the teaching, there's the teacher, and there's the sangha. There's a community, there's a congregation. And these three things, it's been my experience

that no matter what path, no matter what tradition you're looking at, no matter where these things have evolved out of, that triumvirate always exists. And I've wondered in the past, like, what's the reason for that? And I've talked to so many teachers of different traditions and they've effectively all said the same thing,

which is that if you pull one away, the house falls. And so I'm wondering how you then translate this to the world that you're living in. And how do you recreate that in a way where you understand that the levels and the structure around it is still there in a way that people are supported in the work? Sure. Well, for each of these paths, right, let's differentiate spiritual paths. The goal is basically some sort of enlightenment, right? It's some sort of, you know, final or never to be achieved final, you know, kind of enlightenment that's way beyond this kind of human condition. And so I would say in the workplace, we're operating in a way that moves us towards that, but what we're talking about is not going

to get us to the final place, but it gets us away from the human condition a little bit into moving from the head to the heart, let's say. Maybe not all the way from the heart to the soul, but moving at least from the head to the heart. And so all of the things that we do at work, I'm very conscious of what has worked in spiritual traditions or wisdom traditions. And we try to replicate some of those things. So we have community groups as an example, because we know how powerful a sangha or a satsang or a Bible study or catechism or temple is for people. You want to have community. You want to be able to talk about the things that are really important to you.

So we recreate that at work. There's a private practice, right? That's the thing that you do on your own. And then there's a set of teachings. And those, you know, those are all available. Now, a teacher, look, I'm not saying I'm the teacher, but there's lots of us. And we're not trying to be messiahs or gurus or whatever.

We're just trying to translate things into language that is easily approachable, that's easily usable at work. But yeah, we don't get all the way to enlightenment on the things that we're talking about at work. Yeah, but it is really fascinating how you've sort of translated, you've reinterpreted the quote goal of these practices, which within the practices, they'll always tell you that's actually not the goal anyway, that you should let go of the aspiration, like the desire to achieve. That's right. But the truth is human nature likes to work towards something.

It's the way we're wired. That's right. So it's interesting to see how you've sort of like reimagined this in the most inclusive and digestible way. Yeah. That's right. Not at all. There was time in a world that you sort of like railed against and then, you know, like time where you really work to try and start your own thing. And it was an interesting season for you. That's right. It took me a long time to kind of get to the center point, what I call the center point of being operating as my true self, like the thing I really want to do. So I did get the engineering degree. I then went into sales, you know, because I'm a more of a

people person than a technologist. And I did that for four or five or six years. And I was just like thinking to myself, oh my God, at the end of the day, either my company is going to make a bunch of money or the competitor is going to make a bunch of money. But how am I changing the world? Kind of that, maybe you can change work from the inside out thing. And so I was looking around and found another opportunity. I became a manager doing technical support for a semiconductor company. And I was right. I was way better at being a manager and a leader than I was at a salesperson and did really well.

And I ended up moving up the ranks and being an executive in kind of the customer service or customer facing roles and ended up at LinkedIn as the VP of global customer operations, which it's a little complicated, but it's a lot of the customer facing stuff that's not sales. And ultimately it was a team of about a thousand people, right? 25 different work groups and let's just say a very demanding job. And I started at LinkedIn about nine years ago. And about two years into it, I realized, wow, this place is so open. I'd never talked about my personal practice, my spiritual practice in the workplace, never. But I thought maybe this is a place where I could bring a meditation, being part of my practice to work. And I talked to my

friend who led the wellness programs, and we both got really excited about it. And I talked to my friend who led the wellness programs and we both got really excited about it. And I went back to my desk and I did absolutely nothing about it for like three months. I was, cause I was terrified. I was thinking, I was remembering back to this time in Kansas where, you know, I was trying to be out about it, but it just wasn't appropriate. I was thinking, wow, what are people going to think of me? Like, what, to do for my brand? Are they going to think I'm weak? I'm a leader here. Can I even do this? And I finally got over all of that and just led a practice. It was on a Thursday afternoon at 4.30 in the heavenly conference room, which I thought was quite auspicious. And there was one dude there. And I'm sure that he was

just as terrified as I was. I never saw him again. And this next week, there were three, and then there were five. It became a regular thing. And then people knew I did it, right? I became kind of like the meditation exec. So I'd get invited to these bigger events. The CFO would have a summit with three or 400 finance people, and I would lead a meditation session to get it kicked off and things like that. And I raised my hand to volunteer to be our executive sponsor of our mindfulness program. We didn't really have one. So myself and a bunch of other volunteers created it. And I did that for three or four years as a volunteer. And then for me, the tipping point was our CEO at the time, Jeff Wiener,

gave the commencement address at Wharton. This is three years ago. And he talked about compassion. And in your commencement address, you get 15 minutes for your best life advice. And he's basically saying, look, if you're going to be successful in life, be successful at work, you got to be compassionate. And then the next two times he's on TV, this is all the reporters want to talk about. And I was thinking, okay, it's time. It's time for me, because I'd been in my ops role for six years. I was ready to do something else. It's time for me to invest my career in this. And it's also time for LinkedIn to invest.

Because essentially our CEO has just told our 16,000 employees that compassion is the most important thing they can do. But we weren't really talking about what does that even mean? And so I made a pitch to Jeff and to our head of HR and with their great support, essentially created this role three years ago with a blank sheet of paper, you know, go figure it out. What does it mean? Whether you're in your running era, Pilates era, or yoga era, dive into Peloton workouts that work with you. From meditating at your kid's game to mastering a strength program, they've got everything you need to keep knocking down your goals.

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On January 24th. Tell me how to fly this thing. Mark Wahlberg. You know what the difference between me and you is? You're gonna die. Don't shoot if we need him! Y'all need a pilot? Flight risk.

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Available for the first time in glossy jet black aluminum. Compared to previous generations, iPhone XS or later required. Charge time and actual results will vary. It's interesting because so often you hear ideas kicked around and they sound great and people are like, let's bring in people to talk about it. And then nothing ever gets operationalized. It's a fairly common pattern. And it's fascinating to see how like this actually becomes something and how you step

into this place. But you said something that I want to deconstruct a little bit, which is you use the phrase when you're like, okay, so how do I actually take this first step in, in a public way within this big organization? You said, I finally got over it. We need to dive into that more because there are a lot of people who have parts of themselves that they deeply believe in. They know that they're central to who they are. They know that it's part of what fuels them as human beings and in work and life. And yet they are mildly concerned to utterly terrified about actually bringing those parts of themselves

to work, especially when you've been in work for a while and you've sort of like, you have a quote, you know, like a reputation and they're terrified of what that might do to the way that they're perceived within an organization. So I'm actually, I'm curious to know more about what the internal process was for you in quote, getting over it. There's so much here. We could spend 20 hours talking about this one topic. Here's for me, right? I've spent my whole life seeking external validation, right? And carefully cultivating who I was and developing a strategy of likability, right? This is my life strategy is likability, right? In other words, this was conscious or unconscious, but look, if people like me, then I'm safe. If people like me, I won't get bullied. If people like me,

I won't get ostracized. If people like me, I won't feel so alone, right? And if I achieve, if I achieve so much higher and more and more, then they'll like me even more. And they'll say good things about me and I'll be safe. I think this is a lot of what a lot of us do. Now, the truth is, I believe that the power comes from the inside. When we're so strong in our own beliefs, we're so strong in our own skin, we're comfortable in our own skin is the word we use as we get older, that we don't really care what happens as much to us from the outside.

Now, for me, this was made easier by, look, I'm older. At that time in my life, I was in my late 40s. I was successful in my career. I figured if everything really went south and I got fired, we catastrophize things. If everything really went south, I got fired, we catastrophize things. If everything really went south, I've got resources. It'll be easy for me to find another job. I'll just shut up and do my thing quietly at the next place. So I came from this place of privilege, right? Basically, I'm an old, rich, white dude who had safety.

And I'm very aware that that is the case. So for me, I started thinking about what I really wanted. And what I really wanted was to be me. Because I think another thing that happens is one of the deepest held desires we have as humans is the need to be seen and heard and acknowledged. Now, I had been seeking that need to be seen and heard and acknowledged but it was all kind of a not a facade but it was a carefully cultivated way and in times of my life where I expressed vulnerability like true vulnerability usually in a one-on-one situation and the other person held me not literally but like they honored that part and they themselves were vulnerable back

that's incredibly powerful. In other words, if I can really, really, really be myself in front of you and you hold that space for me and you say, yeah, I like you this way too. I like you this way even better. Then that's so empowering. And I'd experienced some of that to know that the more I show of my true self, the happier I'm going to be. It's so counterintuitive to the way we've been wired.

And so I finally got to that point. And, you know, my life bears that out. The more and more I did this, the more and more I showed my true colors, the bigger, I'm using air quotes, the bigger I got to play, the more powerful I became in what I do, the freer I became in what I do. And I mean, that resonates in a big way with me. I'm also concerned that resonates in a big way with me because I'm also an older, white, middle-aged, privileged dude. And I guess a broader question, and I realized the irony of the two of us having this conversation, but as you laid it laid out the path, you know, like, or laid out,

like posited the question, like, I'm curious whether you have a lens on, but what if that's not your, where you're coming from? What if you're not coming from a place of such inclusivity or privilege? And yet you're feeling this same angst of persistent stifling that feels like it just can't be sustained anymore. Sure. I think I'll give an analogy and I think it works the same way because a lot of people now approach me and they want to have a job like mine at their company. They're interested in these topics and they want to live it at their company. And what I'm super aware of is that it took a lot of circumstances to go perfectly right

for me to have this job at LinkedIn. LinkedIn successful. It was led by a CEO who was talking about compassion and talking about meditation. I was successful. All the things I just talked about, I had gotten to that place. I was also trained from a very young age to be this person and also trained in business from a very young age

to be this person. It was like all of the perfect alchemy of things came together to make this happen. So if someone's at another company, it's probably not as easy for them. But what I'm trying to do is paint a clear picture of how it worked for me. And to say that here is a recipe. A lot of the same recipe is true.

It's probably going to be harder for you at company X because you don't have a CEO who's talking about it. So you're probably going to have to work harder to get that executive buy-in. In the same way, it's easier for me to say all these things. But if someone's not coming from a place of privilege, this is literally the definition of privilege. Privilege is, I worked at a company like LinkedIn. I still do work at a company like LinkedIn. I'm white. I'm well-off. I'm a senior in the company. Those are literally privileges. And for people who don't have each of those things, it's harder and the recipe is still

the same. You still have to be vulnerable. It still has to come from the inside out. It still has to be true to who you are at the root of it. Will it be harder? Probably. Yeah. I mean, I think we're in an interesting point of reflection right now in the world of work,

you know, where the last 18 months or so, a lot of the assumptions that people have made about what work is and isn't, about what the environment is and isn't, about what you can and can't do, have been blown up. You know, the bargains that we made that got us to this place, the things we said yes and no to, and the things we assumed into existence, some of that still exists, but a lot of it doesn't. And even the stuff that exists, I think of what a lot of people are realizing is there's a lot more that's sort of like up for re-imagining and re-negotiation right now. And I wonder if we're stepping into this season of, quote, emergence, where where people are really reexamining.

They're saying like they're looking at the last 5, 10, 15, 20 years and say, okay, this is what I was willing to say yes to. This is the bargain that I was like okay enough with until this point that I was willing to just kind of keep on keeping on. But I'm not okay with it moving forward. Yeah, exactly. I think this is one of the silver linings, one of the gifts of the pandemic. It's like we've been watching this TV show for the last, whatever, 10 or 20, 30 years, and we've been glued to our couch and we're addicted to this TV show. And all of a sudden, the TV turns off for 18 months or it's different. And we have to get up and look around and talk to our spouse again and play with our kids outside. And then the TV comes back on and it's like, well, actually,

it's different now. Maybe I'm only going to watch a little bit. It's just different. And so it's a beauty of getting to, it's like a pattern interrupt for 7 billion people. And we all get to decide who we are again. I think that's a powerful thing because we all get to do it together. So companies are redefining who they are and why they exist in the world and employees are redefining who they are and why they work. And so one of my favorite sayings is awareness gives us choice. I don't think we were as aware as we could have been and faced with real options. Before, it's like we didn't have some of these options, but now we are faced with real options.

And so what are we going to do? I think it'll be the next grand experiment over the next decade. Yeah, I don't disagree with that at all. you know the at the end of the day even if you're not a company where there's a senior leadership structure that is sort of like open to reimagining and open to conversations around purpose and meaning and culture and compassion and and self-discovery you are revisiting your bottom line right now and you are wondering how am i going to keep the people who I perceive as my quote, best people, even though I have big issues with that phrase. And that, even for people who are most focused on that, that is now tracking back, I think in a much more linear way to meaning and purpose and compassion and all of these different things. So even if you weren't interested in it for like a more

fundamental reason and your genuine interest in developing human and supporting the human condition, if you're focusing, you know, like largely on the bottom line and maintaining a competitive edge and innovating, you have to go there whether you want to or not. That's right. I believe that compassion is a strategic advantage. Like, look, I'm in this life's work because it is my life's work. It's what I'm passionate about. And turns out you can make a lot of money being a compassionate leader. You can make a lot of money being a compassionate company as the research bears this out. And so it's all of a sudden like finding out if brownies, if we found out they were awesome for you, right? If they are filled with nutrients, for me, it's the same kind of thing. Although the brownie thing might not be true. But when we, as a company, look at all of our stakeholders, not just our shareholders.

So all the stakeholders, the employees, the customers, and the shareholders, and we create a balance among them, we as a company actually are more successful. And it turns out the research I've seen shows 14 times, that's 1400% more profitable than the S&P average. And it's counterintuitive, but it's kind of like in a relationship. You know, if we want to be happy when we're younger in our development, we just think about ourselves, right? But as we get in relationships, we have kids, we become leaders, whatever, we realize that, wow, my job is to make all of us happy, including myself. Because if I'm in a relationship and I'm just thinking about me, me, me, me, me,

me, me, it's probably not going to go very well for me over the long term. And the same thing is true of companies. If they're just thinking about the bottom line only, it's not going to go very well. But if they start thinking about how can I make this a great place for my employees? How can I really, really provide value for my customers and solve their problems in a really meaningful way? And sometimes I have to take decisions that are not great for shareholders in the short term so that the whole of us can be well over the long term. That's compassion in action.

And it's a great business strategy. Yeah. I mean, it's fascinating that there's research and that the numbers around it are actually strong. It reminds me a little bit of, I remember I heard, I believe it was the founder of a major flooring company like Floor. It was sort of like these carpet tile type of things. And from day one, they had this fierce commitment to sustainability how to completely

re-engineer the process so that we're you know actually respecting the planet in an industry which was sort of like well known for doing the exact opposite at the time and everybody thought the person was like completely off yeah crazy they're like it's impossible it's completely impossible you can't do that. You're going to like, there's no way to do it. And actually was able to show like, no, actually the numbers show that it's a, it's a huge competitive advantage when you're willing to do this. And that was in the context of sustainability. And then in the context of mindfulness and compassion, like, I think it's really powerful to be able to actually step back and say, no,

actually have numbers behind this as well. But I realized, you know, we've used the word compassion a number of times now, and you've talked about it. But I guess my curiosity is, what are we actually talking about when we're talking about compassion? I define it like this. There's lots of great definitions. I define it like this. It's three parts. The first is having an awareness of the others. The second is having a mindset of kindness or wishing the best for others. And the third is the courage to take action. So if you think about this in a business perspective, in these three steps, first is awareness of others. And you can take both customers or employees. But do I have a deep

awareness of my customers? Many companies do, many companies don't.. But do I have a deep awareness of my customers? Many companies do. Many companies don't. The second is to have a mindset of wishing the best for them. Okay, that's a little bit harder. Am I really trying to solve my customers' problems? Do I really wish the best for them? And then the third is the courage to take action. And this is where it gets really hard sometimes. Because it's courage to take action means that sometimes we're going to act on our customer's behalf, even when in the short term, it's not great for us. So as an example, I'll talk about how we operationalize compassion. At LinkedIn, our head of sales will stand in front of five or 6,000 salespeople at annual kickoff and say, look, our job as salespeople is to provide long-term value. So don't sell something our customers don't need at the end of the quarter just so you can hit your quota. Like, wow, that is so different than what I was taught as a 26-year-old

salesperson. Or it happens in product development. So we have these product reviews a bunch of times a week where a product manager comes in and shares with the product executive team. Here's the latest revision of the product. Here's what it's going to do and the results, you know, et cetera. And, you know, it could go something like, okay, we're going to do X, Y, and Z, and it's going to result in 22% more clicks, you know, 22% more engagement. And the first question, if they don't answer it themselves, first question is always, okay, but what's the member experience like? And if the answer is, well, hey, did I mention it was 22% more clicks?

I think the meeting just stops, you know, and we go back to our, we have a discussion about our number one value, which is members first, you know, and I guarantee you that product manager thinks about that the next time they introduce something new. So in other words, how can we solve for the whole? And by solving our customers' problems, by creating a great employee experience, we know that over the long term, that's going to lead to great business results as well. Yeah.

And I know that example was in the context of customers. Yes. I confess to probably being more curious about the context of colleagues, the context of like broader. Right. Because that's a less measurable or less easily like metric, metric-a-sizeable thing.

And yet, I don't even, I'm making up words here. Right. Yeah. Well, here's a way we're trying, right? So let me start at the high level and then get into the goodness. Our, you know, our head of HR will talk about treating people beautifully, right? So sometimes I think, oh, let's create this big playbook on how to do this. And then what I realized is actually, all you need is a mantra and a story.

You know, the mantra, the tagline is treat people beautifully. And so then anytime someone four or six layers deep in the organization is writing a policy, the first thing in their head is treat people beautifully. Does this treat people beautifully? What I'm about to put on paper. So that's where it starts. But how do you measure this stuff? Well, I think at the really high level, you can measure things like attrition rates,

and you can measure things like employee satisfaction. And those are across a broad set of things. But within these kind of employee satisfaction surveys, so we bought a company called Glint a few years ago. It's now part of LinkedIn and they do 360s, leadership 360s and employee satisfaction surveys. And what we're trying to do, this is new, is I've taken the behaviors of compassion and, and boiled them down to kind of the top 11 or 12 behaviors, right? And if we put these in a leadership 360, you know, then as someone is asking about asking their staff or the people they work with, like, how do I rate as a manager? They can go across these 12 behaviors, you know, does Scott do X, Y, and Z on a scale of one to 10

or one to seven, whatever it is. And you can come away with a compassion index, right? A compassionate leadership index. And then over time, wow, let's say that we could, this is new, this is what I'd like to do over the next few years. What if you could tie that compassion index to things that are also in that same survey, like attrition rates or employee satisfaction rates? Because those we can track towards productivity and creativity and other things that are really hard measures of the business that have real dollars associated with them. So I do think that this ability to measure compassion of how we behave is totally coming

at both the individual leadership level, at the team level, and at the company level. Yeah, I love that. And I'm actually really excited about that, because so much that happens in the world of industry is if it's not measurable, it's not real, and it's not worth getting behind or allocating resources to. And the notion that you might be able to actually at some point attach metrics to it,

all of a sudden makes it scalable and operationalizable across a wide domain of business. But I'm also, I'm really curious about sort of like the approach that you just shared on a broader scale, because if you're looking at these ideas in the context of employees and leaders in work environments, and you plant the seeds of this in the context of work, I wonder whether you've also looked at, well, what is the ripple effect into a person's personal relationships and the way that they feel about themselves as they move through life into their health, their mindset, the way that they live outside of the

context and the domain of work? Absolutely. And this is why mindfulness and compassion are the twin aspects of my role. They're totally related. Mindfulness is, I use it as a bridge word for lots of things, but essentially it means self-awareness or the development of ourself, right? And encapsulates all the things you just mentioned, all those good parts about developing ourselves. And then compassion, because we don't work or live in isolation, compassion is how we work together, how we live together, how we operate. And it's the system of the me and the we. And both things over time, I think will be more measurable, right? So already in the world of mindfulness, specifically meditation, let's talk about meditation. For example, there are already

6,000, well over 6,000 peer reviewed scientific papers that share the benefits of mindfulness, less stress, less anxiety, less, you know, better at relationships, better sleep, all that kind of stuff. There's less data at the moment around the correlation between mindfulness or meditation and productivity. And there's a part of me that doesn't want to go down this road because I don't want people to think, hey, we're trying to get them to meditate so they're more productive. But I also want to have the data to share with the C-suite to say, even if you don't care about meditation, like this is like you're going to create a more successful business.

So over time, I do think that we'll have more data that ties all of these factors together that shows us that when we do these practices as an individual, when we do these practices as a team or as a company, we all feel better about ourselves. We feel like we're making progress in the world and we're making the as a team or as a company, we all feel better about ourselves. We feel like we're making progress in the world and we're making the world a better place. And you know what? Our business is actually more successful as well. You're going to be fun. On January 24th. Tell me how to fly this thing. Mark Wahlberg. You know what the difference between me and you is?

You're going to die. Don't shoot him. We need him. Y'all need a pilot. Flight risk. The Apple Watch Series 10 is here. It has the biggest display ever. It's also the thinnest Apple Watch ever,

making it even more comfortable on your wrist, whether you're running, swimming, or sleeping. And it's the fastest-charging Apple Watch, getting you 8 hours of charge in just 15 minutes. The Apple Watch Series X. Available for the first time in glossy jet black aluminum. Compared to previous generations, iPhone XS or later required, charge time and actual results will vary. You know, it's funny, as you share all of these ideas there's a thought bubble sort of like building over my head which is very not mindful by the way

it's like no judgment be here now be here now but uh you know it's it's interesting because people can't see your face but you've been smiling the whole time we've had in conversation. And when you talk about these ideas, there's an energy. And I wonder if it's in part that, yes, it's really cool that you can actualize this in the context of big enterprise and get the head and saying, at the end of the day, I wonder if he really cares about any of this or whether this is just a mass, mass ruse to change the human condition fundamentally writ large. Well, it's all part of the same thing, isn't it? Here's what I think. Each of us, here's my, my worldview, each of us at the root, our best self, our true self, what do you want to call that is soul, you know, and we're wrapped by a physical body and a mental body and an emotional body. And the way we learn,

the way we evolve is to use those talents to express ourselves in the biggest possible way. So I thought about this question for a long time. How can I be a spiritual person and a person of enterprise, of business at the same time? This question I had when I was 17, what I thought was black or white. And to me now, they're all the same thing. I'm using all of these skills. I'm using my performing skills from my, you know, when I was a senior in high school and I was the lead in my high school musical. I'm using my technology skills and I'm using every part of me, the personality, so that I can develop this deepest part of me as soul. And so when you ask, do I really care

about any of this? Well, at the human level, absolutely. Like this is my life's work. But at the soul level, like I learned to detach, right? I'm trying to learn to just do everything I can and then let go. And that is an extraordinarily hard lesson. I think this is one of the biggest challenges that any of us have is this, oh, it's the journey, not the destination. Yeah. But everything in our entire existence talks about the destination, but it's the journey. Yeah. That is the great, it's not irony. It's just like, there's this overlay of like, we're told, you know, like detach, attach, attach, like be here now, be a part of the journey. And yet if you don't have some sense of what you're working towards, it becomes really hard.

And also like we become attached to outcomes that we perceive as benevolent, as good, as constructive, as healthy, as vital. And we like, there's something in, I can't talk about society, but there's something in me that says, but is detaching from that, actually, if the notion is detachment from a particular desired goal is fundamentally, no matter what that outcome is, it's the way to be fully present. And that is the ultimate aspiration is to be without aspiration. When you think of all the amazing, incredible things that you'd love to participate in helping breathe life, you know, breathe life into really like does completely letting go of those really get you to a better place and get the world to a better place. Yeah. And this is the great dilemma. I'm not sure if it's actually completely, completely, completely letting go. It's like try, but not

too hard strive, but not too much. It's the both. It's the middle path, right? Because if you completely just let go, then you become like a leaf on the water, right? Just at the mercy of the water. I think we become co-creators with life. I think we become co-creators with the divine. And this is how the divine expresses itself through our individual personality. So yes, I'm Scott. I have these big dreams. And and at the end i'm going to do everything i possibly can to make those dreams come true and i gotta let it go i gotta do the parts that are that i'm responsible for and then if life wants to happen around me or the universe wants to evolve around me i don't control any of that yeah which is an interesting point to sort of like dive into a

project that you've been involved in um, because there is something really big that you've been participating for like co-creating and founding and to take these ideas and really share them at scale. So it's not just a LinkedIn thing, but this is like, how do we take this? How do we create it? How do we build the methodology around that everybody can buy into, everybody can participate in and send it out into the world and let it do its work. I'm talking about this thing that you've created called the Inner MBA. I think something like 1,500 people are in the first cohort right now. So you're getting a lot of people looking at this offering, which essentially takes a lot of what we're talking about here and puts a methodology and accessibility around

it and builds a way for everybody to say yes to it. I'm curious, what was the why behind that? Right. Well, I guess the flame, what's it called? The flame holder, the flame bearer, the torch bearer is Tammy Simon from Sounds True. And so she approached me at LinkedIn and Soren Gordhammer from Wisdom 2.0. And essentially we pulled our resources all together and created this thing along with New York University. And it's this structure, right? That allows us to talk about these topics that are sometimes hard to talk about. And it's beautiful. We had almost, as you say,

almost 1500 people attend the first one. And here's the thing. I think that the more of us that have the more of this that happens, right? Someone is trained in this methodology or just these ideas. They soak and marinate in these ideas and they go back to their place. And even if it just shifts them 10 degrees, you know, on their path, like where they can be more vulnerable, just like me six years ago, scared at my desk to be my real self. You know, me sharing my story and I'm safe. Six or seven years later, they see that.

And other people are safe too by being themselves. People come out of their shells. And it becomes easier at the next place. I talked about how creating this role was just like this alchemy of perfect circumstances at LinkedIn. And it's not like that every place else. I get it. But when we're out there and sharing, it creates this wave of safety. People can go back to their organization and go, look, this is what successful companies are doing, right? This must be best practice, right? These guys are ahead of the curve. And it makes it safer for them to go back and start something

at their place. So it's like hopefully throwing a giant boulder into the clear pond and the ripple effects take place. Yeah. I mean, it's an interesting place to be in. And again, especially at this particular moment in time, like, yeah, like nobody could have seen like that. Well, apparently some people could have seen what was coming, but, but, you know, I think none of us, like, I imagine when you

and Tammy and Storm sat down to sort of like conceive this, like it wasn't in the context of the world that we currently live in, you know, because it takes, it takes a moment to really make this happen. And it's interesting that the three of you, so I know all three of you now, you know, like Tammy, for those who don't know, is founder of Sounds True, which was this wisdom company that shared the teachings of so many people and has expanded into publishing. And she is somebody who's profoundly spiritual and also a hardcore and very successful leader in business, like similar with Soarin'. He's built this like big, giant global community and event that happens year in, year out, steeped in wisdom practices. So it's almost like, and she comes from a smaller business perspective, although still substantial, like Soren comes from this really big community perspective. And you come from this enterprise level operations perspective and the amalgam of that, and then you bake into it an association with one of the biggest universities in the world. And it's sort of like, oh, so I kind of see what's

happening here. You're taking all the credibility points and all the deep wisdom and experience in all these different domains and saying, so it's almost like anybody who looks at these ideas and says, not for me, you're kind of like, no, actually it is for you. Exactly. Mainstream. I'm just trying to mainstream it one bite at a time. Yeah. Okay. So now the question, now that we've talked about letting go of aspiration and desire. Yes. By the way, this is totally my growth hedge. Right. Absolutely. And raising my hand here also, like I am massively achievement oriented and future focused. And that is why I have my practice every single day because it brings me back to like this thing. You know, you put this into the world.

Yeah. You've got a huge response out of the gate. If you think about what you're doing right now, what you're building, I mean, there's, there's the container that you have at LinkedIn and you're doing incredible work there. But with this new collaborative project that is sort of like just out there for anyone to engage with, do you have a hope? Do you have a vision? Like if you think five years out, if this did everything you could ever imagine it doing. What is the outcome? So this was my pitch, and it's still my pitch. I basically said, look, if we get this right in 10 years, there'll be more compassion in the world. And what does that mean? That means that companies will treat their employees better. And if companies treat their employees better, then the employees will feel more whole. They'll be healthier. They'll be happier. And imagine the knock-on effect of

every employee being healthier and happier. Companies will treat their customers better. There'll be more trust. There'll be more honesty. There'll be less fraud. There'll be less bad things in the world. And if we get this know, individuals will feel empowered to be at their very best at the work environment where we don't have to think that Mondays are terrible and Fridays are great or the weekends are great. It will all be the same part of the experience. So I changed my tagline on LinkedIn to changing work from the inside out, which if you think about an achievement-oriented person, there's no way to measure that. I mean, you probably could, but there's no way.

It's like enlightenment. It's impossible to get all of the way. And so it's another one of those goals that's, it's a great motivation strategy, but it's a terrible strategy for happiness if you're reliant on throwing your hands up in the air, crossing the finish line. So we have our work cut out for us. Yeah. And I guess that is the work right there, right? Is if you're reliant on throwing your hands in the air and crossing the finish line, like rather than saying like, no, like every moment, every breath, every step is the finish line. Every conversation we have is so important. I was, as you know, I just wrote this book.

It's called The Full Body Yes. And I was, you know, let's just say that when I look at my Amazon numbers, I'm led to the conclusion that people don't read books anymore. And so I had these big aspirations. I just thought the numbers would be better. I'm wildly optimistic, right? And so I was complaining to one of my friends, but I was also talking about all the things that I had done, going on podcasts and giving talks and being in front of all these people. And yet my book numbers were X, right? They weren't what I wanted them to be. And my friend said, who cares?

Who cares how many books you sell? You just got to talk to, and he gave the number of all these thousands of people I got to talk to. I was thinking, that's a beautiful reframe, right? It doesn't have to be so associated with a specific event, right? It's every conversation. It's every moment. And then the other part that kind of came to me in contemplation one day, it was like,

you know, the divine and I are having this conversation. And the thing said, dude, relax. You don't have to change the world. You just have to be you. Okay. That is my throwing my hands up in the air is if I can in this moment, in this day, in this week, be me, the best version of me, that's it. That's all I have to do. And that feels like a great plus for us to come full

circle as well. So sitting with you in this container of good life project, if I offer up the phrase to live a good life, what comes up? So for me, I think about a sigh, like a relaxing sigh, like a sitting on a beach in a lounge chair sigh. When I think about that statement, the good life, it's also kind of the same as the full body. Yes. Like it's a relaxing into like, you just know the good life. The full body. Yes. Is when you just know, like you're surrounded by your loved ones. You let go of all that anxiety and stress and striving, and you just let it all go. And you just be the best version of you that you can be. That's, and whatever happens is whatever happens, but that's the good life. Thank you. Thank you. and download it so it's ready to play when you're on the go. And of course, if you haven't already

done so, go ahead and follow Good Life Project in your favorite listening app so you'll never miss an episode and then share the Good Life Project love with friends. Because when ideas become conversations that lead to action, that's when real change takes hold. See you next time. We'll be right back. Flight risk. The Apple Watch Series 10 is here. It has the biggest display ever. It's also the thinnest Apple Watch ever, making it even more comfortable on your wrist, whether you're running, swimming, or sleeping. And it's the fastest-charging Apple Watch,

getting you eight hours of charge in just 15 minutes. The Apple Watch Series 10. Available for the first time in glossy jet black aluminum. Compared to previous generations, iPhone Xs are later required. Charge time and actual results will vary.