On Purpose with Jay Shetty - 3 Crucial Methods to Increase Work Productivity & How to Unlock Individual Success Through Collaboration
Episode Date: May 12, 2023Today, I am talking to Daniel Coyle about how to thrive in a competitive and possibly toxic work environment. Daniel shares his expertise on how to effectively become a part of an organization when yo...u’re a newbie, how to adapt to a high functioning team and still be able to make decisions as an individual, and how to cultivate teamwork both in virtual and real life settings.     Daniel Coyle is an American author and journalist known for his work on talent development, learning, and performance. He has written several bestselling books that explore the science of skill acquisition and the secrets of high-performing individuals and groups. Coyle's work has had a significant impact on fields such as education, sports coaching, and personal development, offering valuable insights into the process of acquiring and mastering skills. He has written several bestselling books including The Talent Code, The Culture Code, and The Culture Playbook. You can order my new book 8 RULES OF LOVE at 8rulesoflove.com or at a retail store near you. You can also get the chance to see me live on my first ever world tour. This is a 90 minute interactive show where I will take you on a journey of finding, keeping and even letting go of love. Head to jayshettytour.com and find out if I'll be in a city near you. Thank you so much for all your support - I hope to see you soon. Key Takeaways: 00:00 Intro 05:42 Culture is a set of living relationships, moving toward a goal together.  09:23 Safety is the foundation of everything 11:50 Reputational risk status is one of the biggest fears when it comes to joining a new company. 16:23 How can you stay connected to your work team but still able to reshape yourself? 18:18 Daniel explains what flash mentorship and how effective it can be. 21:36 In every conversation, send a signal and then wait and see where it’s going 24:12 How do you manage an exceptionally high performer within a group?  31:23 The value of appreciation and gratitude and feedback in any organization 38:08 Humility is being strong enough to realize that what you see is a tiny part of the equation 40:55 Find the right partner to help cultivate and develop teamwork 43:58 Creating a shared space It’s difficult to to create real connection in the virtual world but creating a shared space is a good workaround 47:49 What was your first job ever? 49:39 Trust is built on doing things together and experiencing the same things 51:12 Daniel on Final Five Episode Resources: Daniel Coyle | Website Daniel Coyle | Twitter Daniel Coyle | Facebook Daniel Coyle | Books Like this show? Please leave us a review here - even one sentence helps! Post a screenshot of you listening on Instagram & tag us so we can thank you personally! Want to be a Jay Shetty Certified Life Coach? Get the Digital Guide and Workbook from Jay Shetty https://jayshettypurpose.com/fb-getting-started-as-a-life-coach-podcast/  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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I'm Munga Shatekler and it turns out astrology is way more widespread than any of us want to believe.
You can find in Major League Baseball, International Banks, K-Pop groups, even the White House. But just when I thought I had a handle on this subject, something
completely unbelievable happened to me and my whole view on astrology changed. Whether
you're a skeptic or a believer, give me a few minutes because I think your ideas are
about to change too.
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Safety's the foundation of everything.
And people think that safety is about
like swaddling people in cotton and making them feel comfortable. When actually think that safety is about swaddling people
in cut and making them feel comfortable.
When actually and it's
meant to inspire you while outlining tools and techniques to live a more mindful, stress-free life.
We dive into a range of topics and the best part is, each episode is only seven minutes long,
so you can incorporate it into your schedule no matter how busy you are. As a dedicated part of the on-purpose community,
I wanted to do something special for you this year, so I'll be playing a hand-picked
daily J during each of my Friday podcasts. This week, we're discussing your relationship
with work and how to be more present, productive, and purposeful. Of course, if you want to listen
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Welcome back to on purpose,
the number one health podcast in the world
where we dive into your physical, mental, emotional,
financial health.
And I know that well-being is a big priority for all of you.
And the well-being of the people you work with and the well-being of the people you work with,
the well-being of the people that work for you if you have a team or a company or you're an
entrepreneur, or even your family that you work together with, culture is at the heart of that,
and how we think about the people that we interact with daily, how we understand how to give
them feedback, how to connect with them, how to communicate with them more effectively. I mean, if the quality of our life, which
we know from Harvard's 75-year study, that the quality of our life is based on the quality
of our relationships, then finding great culture in our relationships is such a key need.
I was exposed to the fascinating cultures of monks' lives
when I lived as a monk for three years,
and I gained so much from that culture that I adopted
and I brought into my work.
But recently I came across a book,
and I'm always on the lookout for that next book
that's going to shift my perspective,
change my mind, and I'm a voracious reader.
I read a ton, I'm always picking up new books at the airport, at bookstores, and my friends are like, Jay, like when do you get all the time? I'm a voracious reader. I read a ton. I'm always picking up new books at the airport,
a bookstores, my friends are like,
Jay, like when do you get all the time?
I'm like, trust me, I just need to dive in
and learn what I can and take what I can.
And this book, I cannot speak more highly of it
because it has been so clarifying.
It has been so beautifully simplifying of what it means to build culture, build teams,
communicate effectively, give feedback effectively. And so today's guest is the author of my
current favorite book, which is called the Culture Code. He's the New York Times best-selling author,
and this book was named Best Business Book of the Year
by Bloomberg, Bookpal, and Business Insider.
His other books include The Talent Code,
which I haven't read yet, which I'm very excited to read.
The little book of talent, the secret race,
Lance Armstrong's war and hardball,
a season in the projects.
He has served as an advisor to many high performing
organizations,
including the Navy SEALs, Microsoft, Google and the Cleveland Guardians. His new book is called
the Culture Playbook 60 Highly Effective Actions to help your group succeed. It's the ultimate
handbook for fostering and cultivating a stream's strong culture. And we're going to be using that book.
Welcome to the show, Daniel Koyle. Daniel, thank you so much for doing this. and cultivating a stream's strong culture. And we're gonna be using that book,
welcome to the show, Daniel Koyle.
Daniel, thank you so much for doing this.
Thanks for having me, Jay.
It's really fun to be with you.
Yeah, and I really appreciated it.
I know I was talking about you everywhere.
Literally, I was talking about you on my YouTube channel.
I was talking about you on my Instagram.
And so when your team reads down, they said,
hey, does Jay want to speak to Daniel?
I was like, I mean, I don't think there's anyone
I want to speak to more right now.
So today is basically my opportunity to, for free,
which you usually get paid a lot for, for free,
ask you questions about your expertise
that I can apply inside my company and organization
with my team members.
And if you're in the audience right now
and you're like, Jay, I don't have a company. I'm not an entrepreneur. I don't own my own business.
Everything that we talk about will be applicable to you, whether it's within
your organization, within your company. It even applies in my opinion to your
family. It genuinely applies to your friends and the people that you connect with.
So what I'm learning from Daniel and his book is not just the culture code for
businesses, but it's a culture code for life.
And I want you to see it that way as well.
So would you agree with that, Daniel?
I wanted to ask you that question off straight off the bat.
Like I've been using your advice in my personal life as much as my professional life.
I appreciate that.
No, I have to.
Actually writing the book was not any different.
You know, we go and know it with these ideas about what culture is and how culture is
built. Normally, think culture is sort of like the personality of a group.
Like it's just sort of who they are, like Disney is Disney and your culture of your group is you.
And when you sort of look beneath that, what you find is that it's much more like a sport.
It's much more like a skill. It's much more like these sort of certain actions.
It's not about who you are, it's about what you do.
It's about your behaviors. And there's this like language of behaviors that helps people connect, that
helps people open up, that helps people figure out where they want to go together. And it does
feel kind of like a discovery. I have to say, I still feel like I'm like I'm discovering new things
about this even after having written about it for so long. I love that. Let's let's define culture
for anyone who's listening. And like you said, today we think of culture like music or fashion.
And we think of culturally relevant things.
But we also think about culture as you do talk about as within a team, within a company,
within a family, within an organization.
What are the key tenets that define a culture?
And please define culture for us as well as that.
It's so interesting. You feel a culture when you walk into a space with people, right?
You walk into a locker room, you walk into a kitchen of a restaurant, you walk into a school,
and you can feel it. And what are you feeling there? What is that, what is that made of?
I would define culture as a set of living relationships moving toward a goal together.
And the visual I want you to picture is almost like a flock of birds
moving through the sky, like they're connected, they're connected, they're going around obstacles
and they're moving somewhere together. And for that to happen, there have to be these three behaviors
happening. There has to be behavior of connection, like we're in, right? We're not spinning off and
taking off, we're staying together, we're sharing information so we can be kind of aware of each other
and we're open and transparent about that. And we're also nowhere we're headed together, we're sharing information so we can be kind of aware of each other and we're open and transparent about that.
And we're also know where we're headed. We like have something in the windshield that says this is where we're headed, this is where we're not headed.
So culture's not like this sort of just this vibe. We always talk about chemistry and magic of groups, right?
It feels like magic when we have it. Like if you were to right now think about the best most cohesive group you've ever been a part of,
like you could close your eyes and you would get a feeling.
Like that, what it feels like to be with them.
And those are like the peak experiences in life.
But when you extra those,
there are these behaviors underneath them, right?
What we feel is that buzz and that champagne bubble feeling
of being with people we like to solve problems with, we like to work with, and that buzz and that champagne bubble feeling of being with people we like to
solve problems with, we like to work with, and that energy and selflessness you have in
a group.
But those champagne bubbles are caused by a thing.
There's a thing underneath there, and that's safety, sharing vulnerability, and a sense
of purpose.
And those behaviors that build that thing are what's fun to tap into because then you sort
of realize, hey, I don't have to just like wait and hope for chemistry to happen. I don't have to
just sort of hope that this new team gets along and we do well on our project. I don't just
have to hope that when my kids come home from college for Christmas, we have a great time together.
There's actually a there there. There's there's like moves you can make, things you can say and do, and behaviors you can create,
and spaces you can create that help that happen.
So it's a feeling that you end up getting, a feeling of like a little more control over
the most magical, mysterious part of life, which is those relationships, like that study
said.
It's all, life is all about relationships.
It's all about having those peak moments.
And if you can tap in to the like levers and tools that are causing those to happen,
it's a really good feeling. Yeah, let's talk about that a bit. I think one of the biggest
challenges inside a company, a family, a group, a team, especially in the beginning,
is that everyone comes with their own intentions and their
own goals.
Right?
So someone may be turning up to this job just to pay their bills.
That's all they want.
They were nothing else to do with anyone or anything else.
Another person's coming in because they're saying, well, this is a long term career for
me.
I want to make a name for myself.
I want to grow.
I want to advance.
And I want to get some goals at this company. Another person comes in and they go,
well, you know what, I'm here because I actually want to learn
so that I can extract what I know and then go do my own thing.
Right, so you have all of these different emotions,
different intentions, different psychologies in a group.
I guess my question is, how do you then start forming culture when everyone's coming for something completely different?
Safety is the foundation of everything and people think that safety is about like swaddling people
in cotton and making them feel comfortable. When actually it's all about voice. So if you're
a group or a walk-in, this group of diverse people that you're talking about who have diverse
purposes in their mind, diverse goals, the first thing you would get them to do is to say,
tell me about that. Like, what do you want to do about this? There's a beautiful design company,
an idea that you've probably heard of, that has this series of meetings before every team project.
They're called flight meetings. And they say, hey, this is like taking a trip. We're going to have a
pre-flight meeting. We're going to have a mid-flight meeting. We're going to have a mid-flight meeting. We're going to have a post-flight meeting.
And it's a little calisthenic they do.
The meetings don't take long.
But that's what they do at that first meeting.
Like, what are you in for?
What's going to give you joy out of this?
What do you want to learn the most?
And you create awareness to go back to that flock of birds.
Like, you'll bump into each other
if you don't know where you're at,
and if you don't know where you're headed.
And the other big thing that happens in those first meetings is defining that North Star.
What are we really all about?
Let's come to some consensus.
You might be into the learning, you might be into the status, you might be into sort of
the exploration and the joy.
Let's find some language around and let's find some way to define what that is.
And let's keep defining that.
A lot of groups come together and they just sort of automatically say, well, our job together is to do a good job, right?
Our job together is to succeed, whatever that means, but actually pausing.
And this is where I think our work kind of overlaps in an interesting way.
I think a lot of what you always talk about is awareness, creating awareness in and these moments that it doesn't happen by accident,
it happens when you take an intentional pause.
I think what this culture playbook
and this cultural skill set in general
is really about getting great at pausing as a group.
Like, there's all this skill set
to pause as an individual.
We talk about mindfulness, we talk about all of these habits
and rituals and mental calisthenics that give us clarity.
Groups are no different.
They're also an entity that needs to navigate
and connect and figure out what's important
and what's not important.
And so that pause where you say, okay,
what are you most into?
What are you least into?
Why are you here?
Where are we headed?
If we can just get some really simple language
around that, that is the first
step toward making us cohere and start to move together.
What are people's biggest fears when they're starting a new job and then as they progress
in the workplace?
What are their greatest fears?
Have you seen patterns, research studies that show that this is what people struggle with
inside organizations the most.
It's pretty contextual. It would depend on this specific one, but I think one very common one
is reputational risk status. I can't afford to look dumb. I can't afford to display weakness,
which is why in all good cultures, it's funny. I really found this out when I went and visited a Navy SEAL, his name is Dave Cooper. And Dave, he's a pretty normal looking guy. He's not the best
shot. He's not the best swimmer. He can't bench press the most. He's the great at creating
high-trust teams. That's what he's really great at. And he actually trained the SEAL Team
6 that got bin Laden. And while we're at breakfast, he says these words. He says, you know, the four most important words
a leader can say are, I screwed that up.
Just really intriguing, right?
Like, maybe SEALs should be pretty confident.
You should be pretty bulletproof, metaphorically
and literally.
And yet, here he is talking about this profound fallibility.
And I think what that Sh sheds a light on is how
important sharing vulnerability is, especially if you're in a position of power, because that gives
everyone, especially people new to the organization, a clear sense that, hey, this is good to talk
about this. We're here to get better together. We're here to give each other, make each other better,
and share that feedback, and be be fallible and be weak.
So it's really important to make that, to make that, have that moment happen early on.
You know, in group's form, there's like three critical moments, whenever a group forms,
moment one, like the first five minutes you're together.
It's a big deal.
Like, how are you going to get along?
Is it safe?
Do people care?
Does everyone have a voice?
Second one is the first disagreement
We're we're gonna disagree at some point right?
We're gonna disagree and the norms we form around that disagreement are we disagreeing along task conflict
Which is we're gonna have our ideas are gonna fight and that's a good sort of fight or is this personal right and the third one is the first moment of learning
What's gonna happen? Are we to really stop and point out the fact
we just got a little better?
This is really cool.
I'm really glad you gave me that feedback to make me better.
So those critical moments, and I think in successful groups,
they're really good at managing those critical moments,
spotlighting them, and normalizing them.
So it's normal to be safe.
It's normal to disagree.
Thank you for disagreeing with me.
Let's have our ideas find it out.
And it's great to learn. You just made me better. Thank you for disagreeing with me. Let's have our ideas find it out. And it's great to learn.
You just made me better.
Thank you.
And if you get those moments, right?
You're investing in the future success of the group
in a huge way.
And yet our temptation is often to like,
walk past those moments, right?
We are terrible at pausing.
Most teams are really good at do, do, do, do, do.
Action, action, action, action, action. And the good at do do do do do action action action action action action
action. And the world gives you a lot to do like we've never lived on a planet or in an in an
ecosystem that gives you more information and more to do. And and so the teams that have got this
strengths, the strength of pausing, do you think it's great at stopping and saying, what just happened here?
Are we still connected? How can we connect better? That's where the real power is.
Yeah, absolutely. I'm implementing something new, my team right now that I've become a big fan of
and we call it, teach me how to treat you. So it's people actually saying that, hey,
here's how I would love to be treated when I'm
coming in in a bad mood.
Here's how I'd love to be treated when I have a bad idea.
Here's how I'd love to be treated when I have a good idea.
Here's how I'd love your response to be if we're working virtually.
So someone may say, I don't like lots of messages virtually.
I prefer a phone call, right, than an instant message,
or I prefer, if I am feeling down, I prefer, you don't ask me about it, and we just continue
as business as usual, because that's easier for me.
And what I like about this is that it actually places responsibility on us as individuals
to have to explain to others how we work.
And that first of all, if you don't know that,
you get an opportunity to figure that out.
Second of all, now you're not coming
into the workplace worrying why everyone's acting
a certain way, because you've actually asked them
to be that way.
And so now you're free of that pressure
of expectation of everyone tiptoeing around you
or not knowing or worrying what to do.
So I'd love to share that with you and go,
do you like that? Do you not like that? What part of it works? What doesn't work? How can
we improve that?
You must have gotten my memo on how to treat me because I love that idea. I think that's
a really, really good idea. And you're not the only one to do it. That's one of the
fascinating things about this moment we're living in. A lot of change in the landscape,
a lot of change. And one of the biggest, that's causing all these experiments.
And so what you're describing, I've heard described as user's guide,
you know, user's manual to me.
I mean, we should quick start guide with our television sets, like,
why don't we get it with our people that we work with?
It's the exact same thing.
And it's very powerful because it creates two moments of reflection
as you just described.
First moment, you've got to figure out, I'm at my best when, I'm at my worst when, what
I need from you is, what I don't need from you is.
And then that person gets an opportunity to see that and reflect.
And so, yeah, that is exactly the kind of pause I think that allows a team to navigate
together.
And, you know, this landscape is asking us to do groups to do two things that are very difficult right now.
How do you stay connected and change at the same time?
You know, hybrid work, huge change, social justice questions, big change in questions, new generations coming into the workplace with a new idea of the social contract around work. Huge change.
So how do you like stay malleable?
You know, where I'm connected, but I'm able to reshape myself almost like that flock of
birds and navigate together.
And I love that, I love that user's manual idea that you have.
Teach me how to treat you.
It's really, really good.
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I'm Mungesha Tickler and to be honest, I don't believe in astrology, but from the moment
I was born, it's been a part of my life.
In India, it's like smoking. You might not smoke, but you're going to get secondhand astrology.
And lately, I've been wondering if the universe has been trying to tell me to stop running
and pay attention. Because maybe there is magic in the stars if you're willing to look for it.
So I rounded up some friends and we dove in and let me tell you, it got weird fast.
Tantric curses, majorly baseball teams, canceled marriages, K-pop!
But just when I thought I had a handle on this sweet and curious show about astrology,
my whole world can crash down.
Situation doesn't look good. There is risk to father.
And my whole view on astrology, it changed. Whether you're a skeptic or a believer, I think your
ideas are going to change too. Listen to Skyline Drive and the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcast,
or wherever you get your podcasts.
Yeah, no, and I love hearing the other language
for the user manual or the user guide.
I think that's really interesting as well.
And I couldn't agree with you more.
I think we, I love the idea of the pause that you're saying
and filling that pause effectively.
And I think one of the biggest things,
when I pause or I encourage people to pause
or I hear from them,
I know that a lot of people will be listening right now
and say, Jay, Daniel, my workplace is a toxic environment.
Right, it's a negative environment.
I struggle with being there sometimes.
I don't look forward to going to work
or if we're working virtually,
I'm drained by it, not just by the tech of it,
but the actual interactions.
What does someone in that scenario,
how can they think or rethink what they're doing,
or how they can function in that space?
Don't think, just run.
If it's that toxic, get out.
That would be number one. Number two,
this is saying that I've come to really appreciate, which is that culture is the 15 feet around you.
And there's a circle of control. There's a lot of things about our life that we cannot control.
There's a lot of things about our jobs, in particular, that we cannot control.
But having positive, healthy learning, safe interactions with a small group is a doable thing.
It is an absolutely doable thing.
And one of the exercises we have in the playbook
is you are the center of a circle.
And then you sort of track your map around you,
putting the initials of people you work with.
And the closer they are to you,
the more secure and strong that relationship is.
And the idea is to kind of map that in your mind and identify where those strength is
and identify where you might want to build and grow those relationships by sending signals
of safety and connection, by maybe being vulnerable a little bit.
So seeking those things out.
And the other thing, I think, that helps those sorts of situations is to put focus on the learning
piece of it.
That's the one thing that work can often give us, opportunity access to make us better
in some small meaningful way.
And trying to seek out those opportunities is another very simple concept that I've seen
some cultures do there talk about in the book too that's that's called flash mentoring. It's
where you know getting a mentor is a really big ask. It's a really big deal
these heavy relationships. Well some groups have solved for that by creating
flash mentorships where it's a it's a it's a smaller ask. You go to someone you
admire even if it is a largely toxic place find somebody who's work you admire say, would you mind if I just like walked you, walked me through your
typical day or tell me how you prepared for that presentation or give me some feedback on this
smaller, shorter, coffee-sized interactions that are built around learning can be a really effective
way to get a little bit more out of that work day. Yeah, I really like how specific that is.
Often when we think about mentorship, we're like,
I want you to be my mentor and it's like this big life decision.
And that person may not have time, they may not have the energy we miss out on.
The opportunity is you're saying to learn something specific in short term
that could have an amazing impact.
And also that person could see you apply what they just shared with you. And then
with that mini experiment, they go, I'd love to mentor you further, right? So it builds
that trust in these mini bites and chunks, rather than someone takes you on, you can't deliver,
you have something personal going on. And all of a sudden, they feel like, well, why am I wasting
my time mentoring this individual, too? Whether that leads me to really interesting places,
can people impact and shift culture
when they're not the boss, when they're not in charge?
Is it possible?
Yes, it is, it is.
It's difficult, it's difficult.
And the words that I would use are a word that you just use,
which is experiment.
Being oblique.
I've seen people influence culture
when they have a bad boss and the boss doesn't want to change
by providing that boss with a book
that might, you know, sliding it in their door
or creating a conversation or forgetting the boss
and just trying to model and create,
what does a great group look like?
Let's have a coffee gathering at 10 a.m. every Monday
and start talking about creative new ideas and
that initiative that which is born in that idea that culture is the 15 feet around you that you have control over the signals you send
The largest sense the idea here is one. It's a really important distinction between the things that are complicated and things that are
between the things that are complicated and things that are complex.
We often tend to think that culture is just,
if I do the right thing, the right thing will happen.
There'll be some linear effect,
like if I just had the right thing to say to the boss, right?
But that's not actually how it goes.
Culture isn't just complicated.
Culture is actually complex.
Complicated things, there's a way to do it.
Like it's building an engine of a Ferrari.
Like I can give you the diagram and you can follow the diagram
and you build it.
But complex things change every time you do anything.
So it's the difference between building an engine
and raising a kid.
So every time you do a little experiment,
a little probe in the culture area, pay attention
to what happens and amplify the good things
and kind of ignore the bad things.
So if your building culture is about doing these constant sort of probes and experiments,
let me try, let me try a book, let me flip him a video.
Let me show her a conversation that I had recently.
Let me try this coffee thing, let me try that.
And you'll find as you sort of, you'll experiment forward in a direction in like with any experiment.
You'll make some discoveries.
And you'll, and follow that energy and see where it leads.
You know, culture is not like Legos.
It's not like you can just say, put this thing on that thing and this thing.
It's a conversation.
You're having a conversation with your group.
And in every conversation, you send a signal and then you wait and listen. And see where it's going and see what you learned and see what you've discovered.
Yeah, when you're doing that exploring discover one one thing that's really interesting is that I believe, you know, inside a healthy organization, you'll have good performers and then exceptionally high performers. How do you go about managing an exceptionally high performer within a group?
Because often what happens is high performers are just so productive and effective that they
either take on everything themselves or people may struggle to keep up with them or work with them
because they can see that this individual is highly independent, highly self-motivated.
But at the same time, and you see this in sports,
when I think about soccer,
which is my favorite sport,
having grown up in England,
you look at stars like Cristiano Ronaldo
or Leonardo Messi or these phenomenal talents
and then in the US, people like Tom Brady or LeBron James,
you have these characters and these personalities.
How do you effectively bring them into the world
and help people?
Because in some of those examples,
there's a natural respect and admiration for that person
because of their almost elite status.
But in the workplace, it's not always like that.
It's not always as clear-cut as this person's the one
who's gonna win us the championship.
Right. No, it's interesting. And that's a great analogy with the world of sport. I mean, there are,
there are occasionally superstars. The way the world is moving, though, is that I think a lot of times
those superstars reputation exceeds what's actually happening. Our world is so complicated that even
with stars, they are inevitably not solo actors
They're not they're not out there doing it around there is a connected web of people and information and systems that are supporting them
There's a cool study that Adam Grant referenced in a in a recent book where they took
Star surgeons star surgeons from different hospitals away from their teams and they watched how they performed when they moved to a different hospital.
And the same thing with traders, great financial traders.
And they saw how they performed when they changed firms.
When these people lost contact with their system of support, their performance went back
to average.
I think the cultural move here is to not to celebrate the star, but to illuminate the
support.
To spend time talking about praising in certain cases,
illuminating, spotlighting, making mantras around
the collective activity that's producing,
who passed the ball to Ronaldo?
Who cleared away the defense so that he had a clear move in?
I think that's a much more healthy place to go,
especially as our world moves more and
more into these, you know, collective spaces.
You know, lately we've been seeing all of these films about toxic founders of tech firms,
right?
We work, Theranos, Uber, and the reason that all those tragedies happened was that everybody
believed in the myth of the superstar.
Everyone believed that Elizabeth Holmes is different.
Travis Kalenik is different.
Adam Newman is different.
And that is not true.
Like those people do not exist anymore.
There was a time, a bit Henry Ford had more in his brain than anybody else, and he was
the person you should go to for vision direction, and he had the answers. But we live in a world that moves way too fast. We move in a world that's way too complex to go
back to that word, to have any single person. So if any person comes up and says, I have all the
answers, that is a huge red flag that they definitely don't. As Pete Se Singer said, be wary of great leaders, hope for many good small
leaders. Right. I think there's a deep truth in that. And so having a system that
celebrates stars is as we move into this area, as we move into our future, where
things are moving faster than ever, more interconnected than ever, that's
a less healthy approach than the team that we have a bunch of stars and everybody's
playing a role and is aware and helpful.
That's really useful.
I really appreciate that because, yeah, it's an interesting dynamic because I think back
to when I was in the workplace and so I worked at Accenture for a few years and you know,
had a really great career there, had a really great relationship with the company and it was a phenomenal time for me.
I learned a lot, developed a lot and I found that there were some leaders that were just exceptional
at championing young talent. You know, at other times in organizations, I found that a lot of
leaders are intimidated by young talent or condescending towards And they feel like, well, what do you know? You've only been around for two minutes.
And I think that balance is really interesting
because as much as you don't want to put too much value
on star culture, you don't want to dampen star potential
because I think that's, I saw so many friends leave
organizations when I knew that person was really talented.
And I knew that person had so much to offer, but the company wasn't able to understand
and dial that in.
And that's something that I say to everyone on my team that as much as I want them to have
a professional goal and a personal goal they want to learn, but beyond both of those,
I want them to have a goal that is about their potential.
And I want to be the person to help them fulfill
their potential. Like that's always one of the things I said anyone who joins our company.
It's like, I want you to fulfill your potential here. Or even if it's not here, I want you
to fulfill your potential. I want to be a part of that. Because I know that I would have
wanted to hear that when I joined an organization. And I never really felt that I heard that as clearly.
And I found that, that you know for some people
is like well if you leave then we don't you know you're no longer connected to us and if you stay then you play by our rules
and I think that was always a really really fascinating thing.
I still in lightness there's certain points where being morally good and being smart crossover and actually are the same thing and that's a moment where it is and I see that over and over again.
There's a I do some consulting for And I see that over and over again.
There's a, I do some consulting for the Cleveland Guardians baseball team and occasionally one
of our assistant coaches will get an opportunity to be a head coach at another team.
And there's a bit of a tradition, a habit, a custom that when that coach gets that interview,
the front office sort of circles around that person and helps them.
Helps them build their worksheet, helps them build their plan, tells them what's suit
to wear, gives them contextual information, and sends them on their way.
And it's a beautiful thing.
You're losing someone, but you are deepening a relationship, and life is long.
People will circle back around, and you will always have that relationship.
And I think that's a very enlightened and wise way to approach that sort of off-boarding moment.
Yeah, I think moving forward with that, there's something that I find which I really loved
from your book and I'm excited to see how the playbook makes this more practical and
applicable. And that's what I love about the culture code. It really dulls you into the philosophy.
And I'm guessing the playbook allows you to really,
you know, take action on those ideas,
which I think is a brilliant combination.
Let's talk about two really interesting things
in the workplace.
Gratitude and appreciation, and then feedback.
And the challenge with gratitude is that it can come across
as flattery and cheap words. And the challenge with gratitude is that it can come across as flattery and cheap words.
And the challenge with feedback is that it can come across as criticism or judgment.
Walk us through what you found as the best ways of showing praise, gratitude and appreciation,
and the best ways of giving feedback inside an organization that actually helps the person
digest how
you're feeling and what you want them to take away.
Larger, yeah, that was a great, I really love that.
This idea around appreciation of continually reflecting back someone's impact and impact
ends up being a really, really important word.
There's a certain kind of appreciation that happens in good culture that is rarely talked
about.
It was introduced to me by the people at Pixar who talk about the pleasure of solving hard problems with people you admire.
The pleasure of solving hard problems with people you admire.
There's a misnomer sort of this mistaken idea that life in top performing cultures is always happy and positive. That if you were to go work at Pixar,
that you go to a meeting and every idea would be a brilliant idea
and everyone would applaud,
and then every draft of the movie
would be better and better and better in the last.
In fact, when you go to that place,
as well as any other place, it's not that way.
There's profound disagreement, there's profound tension,
but they're circled up around that problem,
shoulder to shoulder,
trying to figure out how to make it better.
And the pleasure of that, the appreciation they have for each other in those moments is
very special.
In fact, people will leave cultures and often come back for that feeling.
That's a special feeling.
But specifically with appreciation, I think we have to go back to that word impact.
When appreciation is bad, it sounds like sort of adaboy.
What a coach would tell a player, adaboy, nice job, good job, way to go.
And it's vague, it's generalized, it's not specific to the person.
When it's good, and I saw an example of this, and I think I wrote about it in the playbook,
one example is a weekly impact note.
There was a, it's where you once a week make the habit
of capturing the impact your team has had on the world
and on the group, crystallizing it
in a very, very specific language
and sharing it back to the team.
Almost like a little newspaper of the week.
Here's the impact we had on the world this week.
This health clinic that did it would gather patient feedback
and they would say,
Nurse Johnson treated me really nicely,
really warmly, they would say, Nurse Johnson treated me really nicely, really warmly.
They would share that back.
So that idea of continually reflecting back, which actually connects to the purpose conversation,
because you always end up, I think, using those moments of appreciation as a way to spotlight
your North Star is kind of a beacon to say, here's what we look like at our best.
If we can define that and feel that and name those behaviors and feel those, the better
we get at that, the better we're going to function, the better we're going to perform.
When it comes to feedback, I have a problem with the whole word, the whole concept is a
little bit off.
It's wrong.
The idea that someone can watch me work and get little samples, tiny sample sizes of my work,
and then once every six months come in
and tell me what I'm doing well
and what I'm doing poorly.
The studies actually show that most feedback
is pretty darn inaccurate.
It's based, we tend to be biased toward people
that resemble us, we tend to be biased toward
the most immediate work they've done.
It ends up often creating a bad interaction
because you have someone who is not informed and not ready,
trying to kind of muscle up to deliver some feedback
to somebody underneath them.
And it's got all kinds of problems
that break apart groups.
Good feedback.
A better way to do it was taught to me by Omenin,
Ellen Venustin, who teaches leadership
at Case Western University.
She flips it.
Instead of giving someone feedback, you ask them two questions. It's the more differently
question. You ask them, what do you think you should do more of? It's a really powerful
question actually, and I'm not trying to tell you anything. I'm just saying, it creates
a reflection where they have to say, what's had the biggest impact lately? Where have
I learned the most? What am I most excited by?
Where do you should do more?
And the second question is, what do you think you should do
differently?
That's without being aggressive or threatening.
That's another one that gets me to ponder
where I might want to change my mind.
So creating these kind of safe zones to have the reflection
is really what feedback's about.
So I see a lot of groups moving away
from the big semi-annual
annual review where you're going to get the truth, which isn't really the truth, from someone
who doesn't really know, and moving toward these coaching conversations where they're
continually asking those questions, what's working right now? What are you excited about?
What are you worried about right now? Let's talk about that. And see, again,
it's that conversational nature of culture building that is at the core of, it's like
photosynthesis, right? You got to have these conversations and they'll grow you.
Yeah, I love how you just, you know, busted the myth around feedback, right? Like I
think that there's so much emphasis on how to give
the perfect feedback or how to give the right feedback. And you do give an amazing example
that you, I think extrapolate from both popo-witch and school exams and school essays and how feedback
is given to students who perform really well in the culture code, which I loved, which was that
safety, making them feel a part of something bigger.
And also sharing it with them, knowing that you're saying, I actually know that you can reach this level.
Like, I actually believe you can get there.
But what you've said right now, I think, is really, really incredible, because you're so right that we think that based on a small sample of observation,
we can make a judgment about someone's performance.
And the truth is that we don't know their intention,
we don't know why they did that,
we don't know what they were thinking about,
maybe they were three steps ahead and something else went wrong,
like we just have no idea.
And those questions are really brilliant.
I found this, so in our organization, what we do is we do a quarterly review, which includes
a self-assessment, and then a joint manager assessment.
And what I find really interesting every time I do that is how wrong I am and how differently
I'm thinking.
In the sense of often I'm placing more emphasis
on something else that seems to be important to me.
And I'm not able to see what the person is emphasizing,
but that conversation opens it up.
So we sit down and we're doing a,
they've done their self-assessment.
I say, hey, how do you think you've been performing
in this area and why?
And they'll list of all these things
that they've done well or things they need to do
less or for or differently.
And I'm thinking, wow, I didn't even think
about half of those things.
Like how incredible is it that this is giving me
an opportunity to even be more grateful
and appreciate this person more?
And I've found something really interesting
and obviously this is not verifiable statistically
because I'm it's anecdotal for me.
I found that the top performers inside my organization are people who
give themselves lower ratings than I give them. So often I'll be sitting down with some of my best
people and in every review, they'll rank themselves lower than I did and I'm sitting there going,
I give you like you're amazing like you know, you're incredible and they are actually looking at more ways
to improve. And I find that so fascinating as a trend that I've seen over time.
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I love that. No, it's very true.
It's certainly true in the sports world.
You ask somebody's doing, doing brilliantly.
Ask Cristiano how he's doing, and I might not say brilliant.
So it's a measure of these internal narratives that we don't really have access to, these
internal standards, and an approach of humility.
There was a maybe Seal Commander who called it a backbone of humility that's required with
leadership.
And I love that phrase because humility is really, it's a strength.
This is not humility isn't bending.
It's actually being strong enough to realize,
I'm actually only seeing a tiny part of the picture here.
And I need to learn.
I need to be humbly, I need to humbly learn
what's happening in this situation.
Yeah.
And I think learning why people are making the decisions
they are, teachers do so much more than the decision they made.
And so often in your head you're telling yourself a story of like,
oh, they should have thought about this and they didn't think about this.
And as soon as you asked them, you realized they thought about all of that and more than you did.
And you're humbled and it's so much easier to be humbled in the first place.
You know, one of the things that I genuinely struggle with Daniel,
this is a personal question,
is this challenge that I currently have in my life where not only am I a host, an author,
a coach in my own profession, but at the same time, I'm a CEO and a leader.
And the time I spend on cameras, and the time I'm with you right now, or interviewing
a guest, or I'm hosting a TV show, or whatever it may be, I'm not with my team because I'm doing
tasks that are creative and outward facing.
And so a lot of CEOs may do a bit of press but majority of the time they're working on
the product with the team that they're in those groups.
They don't necessarily live this combined life
that a lot of people live today where they're creators,
they're talent, they're on camera,
but then they also lead teams.
And I genuinely believe that my life
is going to be an experiment in figuring out how to do this
because I find that naturally when I'm doing more of one of them,
it takes away from the time I get to do the other
and both are integral to the work I do.
So have you found any great stories or case studies of how people have created, not
balanced because I don't think it's about equality.
I think it's about creating the right practices and systems that allow you to operate in both
worlds.
Right.
A couple of things I've observed.
One is that when you look at any single, when you think there's a
single leader, you're often wrong. There's often, there's often this pairing thing that happens.
When you, if you look at Pixar, it's Ed Cappell and John Lasseter. When you look at the
San Antonio Spurs, it's our CBUFORD and Greg Poppich. And so finding this unique, soulmate
partner who really has a different domain interest than you
to make it work, it is, as you say, like physics is going to stop you at some point, right?
I mean, there's only so many hours and only so much energy and you've got a lot of priorities
to do. So finding that partner and cultivating, searching and developing that teamwork around that,
I think is incredibly powerful. And the teamwork around that, I think is incredibly
powerful.
And the other thing is, I think always trying, when you do have that fork in the road,
where you need to decide between should I be productive, or should I focus on my people,
to bias toward your people.
When you have that, if it feels like a coin flip, go toward the people.
It was on a call that involved General Mattis,
who used to head up all of NATO's forces,
and someone asked him how he spent his day,
and he said, I spent about 45 minutes
on NATO's strategy, and I spent the rest of the time
coaching my leaders.
The rest time was coaching my leaders.
I was like eight nights of my day, was coaching my leaders,
and those conversations
end up feeling inefficient at the time. They feel like you're, oh my God, I am not doing
the important stuff. But in fact, that's an illusion. You are doing the important stuff
because you're investing in creating clarity, a landscape, a connection that you guys
can navigate it together. So those are the two things that come to mind as you mentioned that.
Yeah, and I see myself moving in that direction of wanting to, you know, I constantly want to
be spending more time with my leaders and my teams.
Like, that's all I want to be doing.
And I completely see the value in that.
And I'm learning how to carve that time out because they also need
support and help and you know everything else that comes with it.
It's not kind of like an outsource delegation job which is not my style anyway but I noticed
that they need that support from me.
You've talked about having ice breakers or conversation starters for meetings and I
love that idea because to me,
like I come from the world of meditation and pause
and stillness.
So for me, a reflection question is like one
of my favorite things.
And I have this restaurant in a here in LA
that I love to go to called Cafe Gratitude
because they always have a question of the day
when you go there.
And they'll give you the question of the day as a table
and then, you know, even anyone who's not usually into this kind of stuff is like,
oh yeah, maybe that's a really cool idea, right? So what are some of the ones, those five minute warm-ups before meetings that help the quality of the meeting itself?
What are some of your favorite ones or examples you've seen work really well?
Yeah, this hybrid thing, it's weird, right? I mean, it's your creating this new space.
And as somebody pointed out, as a man in Glen Fajardo
who wrote a book on virtual rituals,
he's from the Stanford Design School.
It's a good, really interesting book.
But the insight he has is virtual is voluntary.
Like, if we're actually in a root together,
you kind of have to pay attention to me.
I kind of have to pay attention to you.
But to be virtual, you actually have to create
this shared space. And this is a weird you, but to be virtual, you actually have to create this shared space.
And this is a weird connection, but this weekend I did one of Tony Robbins virtual events.
I gave a short presentation to one. Like for 40 minutes beforehand, what were they doing?
They weren't talking about ideas. They were playing really loud music and basically doing yoga and dancing. Like they were creating this shared state, not saying that everyone has to do that, but
in this sort of hybrid world to take a minute and try to create some shared space.
And some of the ideas for doing that are, you know, playing music, are having everybody
like bite-element at the same moment.
Eating on camera turns out to be weirdly effective.
It's like breaking bread together is one of the more powerful things that people do together.
And it feels very strange that you don't camera at first,
but as you get used to it, that can be also a very simple, powerful thing to do.
But whatever you do, whether it's a little guessing game where you play a song
and guess whose favorite song it is, whatever that might be, just think about creating
that shared space in a way that doesn't have to do with the work you're doing, in a way
that just deals with the person, the people you are at this moment. All that said, it
is really hard to form real relationships online. The smart groups right now and the
smart money is in toggling. In having people, if they are hybrid, having times where they're flying and getting together
for a short amount of time where it's maybe half fun and half work, but having that time
and not saying we're going to live completely in the virtual world.
Because that physical connection acts like a booster shot.
Like now I really know you. And now we can really work together.
Yeah, absolutely.
And I'm glad you clarified that
because I think a lot of this stuff is possible virtually,
even though we know that it's better physically,
but it is possible to do these small games
and ideas virtually.
And that does form a better connection.
I know one of the things I was mentioning to people is,
you know, I do feel we get such an intimacy
by being in people's homes right now, right?
And we have for quite a while now.
But one of the things I would do is,
I do always say to a lot of people,
hey, I'm not being creepy, I'm just being curious,
I wanna know what's in your background,
like, what's that a picture of, or what's that behind you?
And I found that that just opened up
such a natural story from them and a natural question.
So I remember one of my clients had a paintbrush hanging on his wall and I was just like,
why do you have a paintbrush on your wall?
And he started laughing and he goes, no one ever asks me.
I was like, well, I'm asking you.
So I want to know I'm being curious, not creepy.
And he said, you know what?
My first ever job was that I used to paint fences.
And then I used to paint walls.
And he goes, then I finally got to paint homes.
And it was like a summer job.
And now he's a big executive of a large company.
And he was like, I keep that there
to remind me of where I started.
And I love that story.
Then I started telling him about how my first job
was that I was a paper delivery boy, right?
I used to go around be a paper boy in my area.
And all of a sudden, we were talking about first jobs.
And I thought, wow, this is a really cool question
to ask people because it shares so much about their history
and where they started.
And so that became one of my favorite questions to ask people
is like, what was your first job ever?
So I'm gonna ask you, Daniel, what was your first job ever?
Oh my God, I was a greeter in a hospital.
I was like, I at the time, I wanted to be a doctor.
And so I stood by the door and kind of
I wheeled people in and wheeled them out.
And new babies and pregnant women were to wheel them in
and wheel out a new baby.
And it was both really fun.
It really gave you, everybody comes to the hospital, right?
You know, you however, small your bigger world is,
you see everybody coming.
And so that sort of interaction,
I think sparked something in me as a journalist
and made me know that I never wanted to be a doctor.
What do you think was the biggest lesson you learned
from that?
Was there a takeaway on inside that
you feel really planted a seed in you that stayed with you?
I think banter is underrated.
Like I think it really the power of banter,
the power of like just having a little light touch
and being able to chat people up
is one of the strongest powers in the universe.
And I think that really showed me that
because you know, you're taking people
and some of them are in pain and some of them are scared
and those little interactions can have a big impact
on the space.
Yeah.
What I've been, I mean, banter in our organization
is, I feel like it's had an interesting time
because everyone's sensitivities have changed.
Everyone's like, you know, barriers and boundaries
have changed as well for good reasons
and also some of them, you know, for personal reasons,
which of course has to be respected and understood.
And it can be quite hard to build a band-to-base culture.
I know that when people see me and my wife talking,
because we're both from London,
the word banter for us is literally how our life functions.
And people see me and my wife in this car,
and sometimes we're like, are you guys okay?
Like, you know, it's everything okay.
And we're just like, no, this is banter.
Like, this is how we're playful with each other.
You know, often banter can be misconstrued.
How do you build the trust first in order to be able
to have banter?
Like, what?
Because I feel sometimes we do it the other way around.
We think banter builds trust.
But often, I don't think that's true anymore.
I think trust allows you to have banter.
Yeah, I think you're right. I think you're right. In vulnerability allows you to have trust.
And I think the fastest way to sort of build that is to do things together.
You know, there's nothing like actually doing something in the real world that will create that trust.
And there's nothing, and to do it away from where you're not capturing it in words.
I think one of the reasons that we're so divided and it's such a difficult time is that
we're relying on people reading.
And reading is a terrible way to get to know someone.
Reading someone's comments, these words they form in their head and they type them out
and then you read them and form some idea in your head, it's absolutely a terrible way
to get to know someone.
So doing something in real life is by far the most sort of powerful thing
that you can do. Whatever, as big or as small as that may be. And also the power of story in
this situation, like, you know, the story you just shared about your friend with the painter,
the story I just shared, being comfortable enough. And that's where those icebreakers, I think,
come in because they start at a safe place where they're going back to what was your favorite meal growing up?
They started a place where we're free of kind of the larger political forces that we're
navigating right now.
And you start from there and then build up.
I love that.
Daniel, you've been so generous with your time and so many great insights and advice.
And at the end of every on-purpose episode,
we do a final five.
This is a fast five round,
which means that every answer has to be given
in one word or one sentence maximum.
So you have that little bit of room to play with.
So Daniel Coil, these are your final five.
Are you ready?
Ready, bring it.
Awesome.
All right, so the first question is,
what's the best advice you ever heard or received?
Look twice.
Always look twice.
Oh, I like that.
We've never had down the show before.
Really, really like that.
Second question, what's the worst advice you've ever received or heard?
Trust your first instincts.
Yeah, there we go.
I like that.
I like that. I like that.
So let's dive into that a little bit
because I think people have a belief that
like your first impression is always right,
your first instinct is always right.
Why do you think that's such bad advice?
Well, it's not true.
You know, when they look at when you do studies
of whether it's exams or anything,
Adam Grant wrote the great book
called Think Again All About This Moment,
but it were built to crave
that certainty.
That certainty was useful for all of history until sort of recently.
And now that certainty is what is often dividing us and often causing us to make bad decisions.
So being able to zoom out, like that ability, we've got, you almost think of it, you've
got these two brains inside your brain one likes to really grasp things
The other is able to zoom out. Yeah, and so realizing wait a minute
Am I using this narrow spotlight right now? Are am I looking through my peripheral vision at more and
Gaining control over that is is a really powerful thing because it causes you to look twice. Yep
Third question is what is your current purpose? How would you define your
current purpose? Teaching culture, that's the, you know, teaching the fundamentals, teaching the
fundamentals of culture. This is how it works. This is how that language works. Question number four
is what trait of culture or leadership are you currently fascinated by that you're currently
learning about that you haven't yet fully grasped?
I think the power of group reflection, creating these spaces where groups can actually think together.
Right. Yeah, I don't think we've figured that out yet. I agree.
It's crazy because we're tired of individuals. We train in schools, we're assessed as individuals, we think of ourselves as individuals.
And yet, all the big things in life happen because of groups and groups.
And we put no energy or attention to figure out what's that, what's that?
And it's best.
Yeah.
I love that.
All right.
Fifth and final question is if you could create one law or one habit that everyone in
the world had to follow, what would it be?
Be nice.
Simple.
Easy.
Yeah.
Really simple. Really? So you have to be nice. How do you define
nice? How do you define that? I'll edit myself. I'll say be kind. It's it's you know an action with
consideration of the other. The kindness is of behavior. It's not just a thought. So to actually
bring that to life. I love that. Everyone, this is Daniel Coil. The book is the culture playbook.
60 highly effective actions to help your group Daniel Coil. The book is the culture playbook, 60 highly effective
actions to help your group succeed. Highly recommend you get the culture code and the culture playbook.
I know I'm going to be ordering the culture playbook straight away, so make sure you do that as well.
It's just brilliant to understand Daniel's ideas and the research and the studies that he shares
inside the book, but then to have the 60 highly effective actions to help you actually take action and apply on those. I mean, you
couldn't find a better combination to be honest. So I really hope you're going to go and
grab both copies. We'll put the links into the podcast section. Daniel, any last words, any
last thoughts you've been incredible. I'm so grateful to get to meet you. I'm excited
to develop our connection and relationship more as well.
But any final words or final thoughts you wanna share.
Me too, thanks for having me.
You're very good at what you do.
I think you model sort of connective sensitivity,
insight and curiosity that good culture's made of.
So thanks for letting me be part of it.
Thank you, that means a lot.
Yeah, no, a lot of the questions today were for me.
A lot of them were things that I'm fascinated by.
And I left everything else in the book.
There is so many amazing insights in the book
that I didn't even dive into today, everyone,
because I wanted to read the book.
It's brilliant.
So Daniel, thank you so much.
Again, have a great, great day.
And I really appreciate meeting you.
Thank you so much.
Same here, Jay.
Look forward to next time.
We all know that fame is not the same as success. And yet, society makes it so easy to slip into thinking there's no difference between the two.
So today, I want to bring it back to what really matters, doing good work,
making an impact, feeling fulfilled. The next seven minutes are about your aims in life
and how to live with purpose. I'm Jay Shetty. Welcome to the Daily J. Let's begin by giving attention to our breath and getting centered, inhaling deeply in,
and slowly letting it out.
Feeling your body reach towards the sky, and fall lightly back to earth.
Drawing energy from the air and releasing tension.
Now, let me ask you, have you ever heard the song California Dreaming by the mamas and the poppers?
How about good vibrations by the beach boys?
Or I got you, babe, by Sonny and Cher.
I would sing them for you, but I want you to keep listening.
Seriously though, if you've ever heard any of
these three songs, then you're familiar with the work of a legendary group of studio
musicians known as the Rekking Crew. Studio musicians are contractors who play instruments
on albums by other artists. They're often exceptionally skilled and the members of the wrecking crew were as good as it gets.
They recorded hundreds of top 40 hits in the 60s and 70s, playing with all kinds of bands, the monkeys, the birds, Franken-Nancy Sinatra.
Their impact on popular music is hard to fathom. However, their work went largely unnoticed by the public.
In fact, I'd be willing to bet that before today, you probably hadn't heard of them. And here's why.
Our society venerates the frontman. We celebrate the rock god, the CEO, the MVP.
We celebrate the rock god, the CEO, the MVP. We idolise famous individuals so much, we might believe that real success equals stardom,
that our effort is meaningless without public recognition.
But that couldn't be further from the truth.
Celebrity is not a prerequisite for impact, nor is it a necessary ingredient
for happiness, purpose or fulfillment. Not to say there's anything wrong with fame.
It can be quite useful when channeled responsibly, and it can calm as a natural byproduct of creating
something meaningful or memorable.
But it's much more important to focus on doing your best work and acknowledging the payoff
that comes from within.
You should take pleasure from knowing that you're doing well rather than having other people
think you are.
Now I'm not saying you don't deserve to be appreciated for your efforts. The
Rekking crew may not have been a household name, but in the recording industry,
they were held in high regard and were compensated well for their services. What I'm
saying is that there's no shame in playing a supporting role. If that's what you enjoy, or that's where you end up.
In the documentary, 20 feet from Stardom, accomplished backup singer, Lisa Fisher says,
I reject the notion that the job you excel at is somehow not enough to aspire to.
So I'm giving you permission right here, right now, to celebrate your integral role,
whether it's in the spotlight or not, because you don't have to be a superstar to do good
work, to make a difference, to feel fulfilled, and to live a life of purpose.
And now, let's meditate on that. Start by getting a little more comfortable
wherever you are, tuning into yourself and tuning into this moment. For the next two minutes, see if you can let go of judgment and analysis,
allowing yourself to sink in.
Today, we're going to connect with some words of acceptance and compassion
of acceptance and compassion towards yourself and others. You can repeat them silently or just take them in.
All I need to do is love myself well. This will be enough.
All I need to do is love others well.
This will be enough.
All I need to do is love my life well. This will be enough. Let that marinate a bit.
is love myself well. This will be enough. All I need to do is love others well. This will be enough. All I need to do is love my life well.
This will be enough.
And now let's open this up.
I'd like you to reflect on what success means to you and whether your definition could
use a little tweak.
How are you currently making an impact?
How are you moving in that direction.
And I'd love it if you shared this program with someone who matters to you.
I wish you success and happiness in everything you do.
I'm grateful for you and I hope to see you again tomorrow.
I am Yom LaVanzant and I'll be your host for The R Spot.
Each week listeners will call me live to discuss their relationship issues.
Nothing will tear a relationship down faster than two people with no vision.
There's all that just flopping around like fish out of water?
Mommy, daddy, your ex, I'll be talking about those things
and so much more.
Check out the R-Spot on the iHeart Video app, Apple Podcast,
or wherever you listen to podcasts. And one-you-feed explores how to build a fulfilling life amidst the challenges we face. We share manageable steps to living with more joy and less fear through guidance on
emotional resilience, transformational habits, and personal growth.
I'm your host, Eric Zimmer, and I speak with experts ranging from psychologists to spiritual
teachers, offering powerful lessons to apply daily.
Create the life you want now.
Listen to the one-you on the I Heart Radio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
What do a flirtatious gambling double agent
in World War II?
An opera singer who burned down an honorary
to Kit-Nap her lover, and a pirate queen
who walked free with all of her spoils,
haven't comment.
They're all real women who were left out of your history books. You can hear these stories and more on the Womanica podcast.
Check it out on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen.
you