Passion Struck with John R. Miles - Stefan Falk on Why Intrinsic Motivation Is Vital to Success EP 252

Episode Date: February 9, 2023

I welcome Stefan Falk to Passion Struck, who is a senior executive and performance coach working with elite athletes, top executives, special operators in the armed forces, and leaders from all walks of life. We explore his new book Intrinsic Motivation: Learn to Love Your Work and Succeed as Never Before. Stefan Falk discusses why intrinsic motivation is vital to success Stefan Falk and I discuss why to achieve productivity and positivity in both personal and professional life, it's important to have a sense of control, an understanding of current events and future prospects, and a strong and supportive social network. The need for connection and trust has become even more crucial with the rise of remote work. However, many of us struggle to meet these needs effectively and instead resort to unhelpful coping strategies. The key to success is to develop intrinsic motivation by focusing on activities that align with our career and life goals, rejecting a competitive mentality, finding joy in our work, and doing it well.  Full show notes and resources can be found here: https://passionstruck.com/stefan-falk-intrinsic-motivation/  Brought to you by Shopify, Green Chef, and Indeed. --► For information about advertisers and promo codes, go to: https://passionstruck.com/deals/  Like this show? Please leave us a review here -- even one sentence helps! Consider including your Twitter or Instagram handle so we can thank you personally! --► Prefer to watch this interview: https://youtu.be/9YK9RPUpRl0 --► Subscribe to Our YouTube Channel Here: https://www.youtube.com/c/JohnRMiles Want to find your purpose in life? I provide my six simple steps to achieving it - passionstruck.com/5-simple-steps-to-find-your-passion-in-life/ Want to hear my best interviews from 2022? Check out episode 233 on intentional greatness and episode 234 on intentional behavior change. ===== FOLLOW ON THE SOCIALS ===== * Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/passion_struck_podcast * Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/johnrmiles.c0m  Learn more about John: https://johnrmiles.com/ 

Coming up next on the Passion Struct podcast. The interesting motivation is when you engage in an activity for the experience the activity gives you. It is the experience of being fully immersed, fully alive. You lose sense of time. It's like flow you're in that experience. I know that we all have that experience. We all have experience that sometimes. Most of us don't really know what actually enables that experience.

Welcome to PassionStruck. Hi, I'm your host, John Armeils, and on the show, we decipher the secrets, tips, and guidance of the world's most inspiring people and turn their wisdom into practical advice for you and those around you. Our mission is to help you unlock the power of intentionality so that you can become the best version of yourself. If you're new to the show, I offer advice and answer listener questions on Fridays. We have long form interviews, the rest of the week with guest-ranging from astronauts to authors, CEOs, creators, innovators, scientists, military leaders, visionaries, and athletes. Now, let's go out there and become PassionStruck. Hello everyone and welcome back to episode 252 of PassionStruck, recently ranked by FeedSpot as one of the top 50 most inspirational podcasts of 2022.

And thank you to each and every one of you who come back weekly to listen and learn, and to live better, be better, and impact the world. If you're new to the show, thank you so much for being here, or you simply want to introduce this to a friend or a family member, we know I've episode starter packs, which are collections of our fans, favorite episodes that are organized in convenient topics to give any new listener a great way to get acquainted, everything that we do here on the show. Either go to Spotify or PassionStruck.com slash starter packs to get started. And in case you missed it, earlier this week, I interviewed Jamie Bronstein, who was recognized by Yahoo Finance as the number one relationship coach. She is the author of the new book, Manifesting, a step-by-step guide to attracting the love

that is meant for you. Please check that out in case you missed it. I also so appreciate your continued support of the show and your ratings and reviews which goes such a long way in helping us improve our popularity, but more importantly, bringing more people into the passion-struck community. I know we and our guests love to hear your comments and thoughts about the shows, especially when you love them. Now let's talk about today's episode. To achieve productivity and positivity in both love them. Now, let's talk about today's episode, to achieve productivity and positivity

in both professional and personal life. It's important to have a sense of control and understanding of current events and future prospects, as well as a strong and supportive social network. With the rise of remote work, the need for connection and trust has become even more crucial. However, many of us struggle to effectively meet those needs

and instead resort to unhelpful coping strategies. The key to success is to develop intrinsic motivation by focusing on activities that align with our career and life goals, rejecting a competitive mentality, finding joy in our work and doing it well. Our guest today, Stefan Falk, will discuss how we can achieve those goals and so much more

as we explore his new book and transit motivation, learn to love your work and succeed as never before, which launched on Tuesday this week. Stefan is an internationally recognized executive coach and human performance expert for top business executives, special ops in the Armed Forces and elite athletes. He has spent more than 30 years helping thousands of individuals, teams and organizations become intrinsically motivated, doing what they love to do because they love the experience of doing it, not because of the extrinsic awards that come with it, such as fame or money.

Stefan is a McKenzie and Co alumnus who specializes in leadership and corporate transformation. He has trained over 4,000 leaders for more than 60 different organizations in North America and Europe. Thank you for choosing PassionStruck and choosing me to be your host and guide on your journey to creating an intentional life. Now, let that journey began. I am absolutely thrilled today to have Stefan Falk on the Passion Struck Podcast. Welcome on, Stefan. Thank you. Nice to be here. Thanks for inviting me. We are welcome and I wanted to recognize you and say congratulations

for the release of your brand new book in Transact Motivation, which releases February 7th. Learn to love your work and succeed as never before. I really enjoyed it. Awesome job. Thank you. Thank you. I'm happy you enjoyed this. Well, as you and I were talking beforehand, we have a lot in common, including a common passion and love for hockey. And you told me that your son played hockey and recently I interviewed another author, John U Bacon, who has this book, Let Them Lead, which is all about him taking over the worst performing high school hockey team in America and turning it around into one of the best. And I thought maybe a good way of opening this discussion was he said that one of the most

important things that he had to teach the kids was that they were going to be the hardest working team in the state. But in order to do that, he had to motivate them who want to get out there and do it every single day. What can a sport like hockey teach you about goal setting and commitment? What it can teach you about goal setting and commitment is that, you know, the importance of the players when you play it, you're under this immense stress and pressure all the time. And in order to cope with that, you actually need to own your own experience.

You can't be sort of a victim for what's happening. You need to take charge of yourself. And one of the most important things in doing that is that you need to cultivate a little bit of your own goals. What is that you want to achieve so you can stand up a little bit and your own goals. What is that you want to achieve? So you can stand up a little bit and manage the environment around you. I think that is one of the most important things. And that's a learning you can make.

Then I think hockey and sport in general has one advantage from the professional world in general. And that is that you see the results of your efforts instantly. So when you play hockey, i general. Och det är att du ser de resaltor av affords instämtligen. Så när du spelar och har att du faktiskt se det på den här. Okej, så är det så att du har en roll för den praktiska eller för den gamle

eller vad det är. Du får instämt feedback om hur du gör att man kan ju då lägga instämtligen, men också att vara fläksig att få en av det här afford är mycket mer än instantly, but also to be more flexible when you actually perform, which makes the whole effort

much more enjoyable. I totally agree with you and it's interesting, John U Bacon actually coached when he was in high school against John Cooper. At that time was a high school coach and now it's been the coach of the lightning down here in Tampa for many years, but John Cooper has this saying that on a good team, the coaches lead on a great team, some of the top players lead on an exceptional team, everyone leads because everyone's on board and they're motivated towards the same goal. I had some sessions with Richard Granbborg that was leading the Swedish national team, very successfully, to a couple of goals in the world championships. And we talked about how he managed the team.

And he said exactly the same thing. It's very important to make everyone in the team feel that they actually lead themselves and also that they areende i en team. En viktig success för dem– –är att de som är lagt till dem– –kommit till ett sätt. Och att ha skitat– –är det mycket av de som har bråd i alla–

–kommit till vad de kallar. Om de har lagt dem– –så skulle de bli lagt till ett sätt. kontrakt. Vi är basically players, de discusserade dem selbst. Hur skulle vi relate to each other? Okay, what should be the behaviors that we sort of try to commit to? How should I deal with myself? And then a very interesting thing was what should our competitors say about us after each game? And that sort of create the song kind of foundation, both for the sense of

being part of this team where we actually relate to each other really well, but also gave each player a platform to actually develop and lead him or herself. Well, I think it's an interesting lead-in to where I was going to go with this. You and I both had our starts and management consulting. You at McKenzie, myself at Booz and Co. And I don't know about you, but I saw so many times across my clients, the same thing that we've been talking about in high performing sports teams,

applied to high performing teams within the corporations that we were serving. And Booz had this methodology that they called no stones unturned. And it was one of the most fundamental methodologies that I've used throughout my career, because you could take it either into how you approached a proposal, but more importantly, how you were approaching the work and examining what was happening inside a company. What were some of the things that you learned at McKenzie

that you still put into place today when you work? Well, I think it's two things. One is to get up close and personally with the clients people that really they want to achieve things, whatever it is. And what I mean with up close and personal is to really understand their true fears and desires. Because if I don't understand what makes them afraid, what makes them uncomfortable, or whatever, I will never ever be able to help them to actually overcome that. And that is at the end of the day what will prevent them from being successful. So that's one of the things. And then the second thing, and I find this actually being one of the

major problems in most companies, is to make sure that clients always qualify how big is the problem, actually that they are working on. And I find that question is seldom asked in companies. And that leads to the situation where I would estimate that as much as 80% of the problems that people actually work on are either non-existent or less important than the problems not addressed or addressed with the wrong level of resources and the wrong plans. Because if we don't understand how big the problem is, how on earth are you going to device a solution that is actually cost effective for that?

But also zoom in on what are the benefits that you want to gain from solving the problem. Planning becomes like almost impossible to make effective plans. So these are some of the things that I sort of always try to practice and that I learned early on for my time at McKinsey. Yeah, it's interesting that you brought that up. I just released an episode with Ways, Poe Founder, Erie Levine, who has a new book out called,

Fall in Love with the Problem, Not the Solution. And it's interesting because I have another friend, Jim McElvie, who Poe Founded Square, and he has the same philosophy. And what Jim told me, and Erie feels the same way, is that so often companies start by focusing on a problem that they have so much momentum around solving. And then over time, it becomes less and less clear around solving. And then over time, it becomes less and less clear as they get into their daily routines and they kind of get lost in having the passion to solve the problem. That was the problem in the first place. Is that something that you have seen as you've been with companies and coach them? Yeah, I guess we both shared one thing. You know, your background from boss and my background from the Kansas, that we have been trained in logical thinking, in fact based thinking.

So it's almost like I have a problem in my head, the five questions, whenever I face a problem, what's a client problem, or a problem on my own. And the first question is of course, what is the problem? Number two, how big is the problem? Number three, what causes the problem? Number. Hur är det problem? 3. Vad är det problem? 4. Vad är det törntivt? Säkst och 5. Vad är det bäst?

Säkst. Vad är det som det beror på mig i en gång? När jag är med med ekstetatet är att säga att du kan säga att du kan säga att du kan säga att du kan säga att du kan säga att du kan säga att du kan säga att du kan säga att du kan säga att du kan säga att du kan säga att du kan säga att du kan säga att du kan säga att du kan säga att du kan säga att du kan säga att du kan säga att du kan säga att du kan säga att du kan säga att du kan säga att du kan säga att du kan säga att du kan säga att du kan säga att du kan säga att du kan säga att du kan säga att du kan säga att du kan säga att du kan säga att du kan säga att du kan säga att du kan säga att du kan säga att du kan säga att du kan säga att du kan säga att du kan säga att du kan säga att du kan säga att du kan säga att du kan säga att du kan säga att du kan säga att du kan säga att du kan säga att du kan säga att du kan säga att du kan säga att du kan säga att du kan säga att du kan säga att du kan säga att du kan säga att du kan säga att du kan säga att du kan säga att du kan säga att du kan säga att du kan säga att du kan säga att du kan säga att du kan säga att du kan säga att du kan säga att du kan säga att du kan säga att du kan säga att du kan säga att du kan säga att du kan säga att du kan säga att du kan säga att du kan säga att du kan säga att du kan säga att du kan säga att du kan säga att du kan säga att du kan säga att du kan säga att du kan säga att du kan säga att du kan säga att du kan säga att du kan säga att du kan important problem here. Can you sit in and just listen and share your feedback on what we could do and how you see this? I have these like five questions, almost like buckets in my head, and that's how I listen, because usually after a day I'm super tired, so I'm just kick back, relax, and listen. And when I'm supposed to give feedback, I just look in my buckets. And in the first bucket, what is the problem? Well, it's not really clear to me what said. What is the problem? Number two, how big is the problem?

That bucket is almost empty. And then the third bucket, what are the root causes of the problem? There are some things in that in terms of alternative solutions. There is nothing. And then in terms of what is the best solution? That bucket is almost full. So my feedback is always, well, I understand that you have a solution och då är det en bästsolution, det bakar det så mycket. Så min feedback är så mycket, så jag har en solution här, men jag inte förstår en problem,

och 2. Jag inte har en perspektiv om hur det är en problem, hur det är. Det är typiskt vad det är. Och det är resanför det, är inte bara resan, men jag tror att vi har så många bra bias. for this is of course not only one reason, but I think we have so many brain biases. So if we don't really put pen to paper and sit down and think deeply in a structured way about the problem, those brain biases will derail us. If you look at, for instance, issues around collaboration at work, and bad work relationships,

I think one brain bias that really makes that the challenge for people is the peak end rule, which is whatever we experience, it could be one meeting, it could be a relationship over time, whatever, we always evaluate that based on the emotional high of the experience and how it ended our last observation. So if, for instance, I have interacted 200 times with the person and 198 of those times have been neutral to slightly positive, but then we have two meltdowns where it was really bad. Chances are I would say, well, I don't really have a good relationship with John. But if you really do the calculus of it, you actually have a really good relationship,

and then you can ask yourself, okay, are these two instances of a meltdown really constitutes a big problem? Let's think a little bit deep about that. So the peak and rule is one. The law of the instrument is another one. I's a gazillion, I think we have about 150 brain biases. That's the most important reason why we need to take time to really think deep about the problems we face. Yeah, those hidden biases play a huge role in the actions that we end up carrying out. And I think as you're describing a lot of times we get into these work environments where we don't give ourselves a minute to think, a minute to step back and analyze as you're saying. What's happening and to really look at it from both the past and the future perspective

to understand what actions could you take to change where you're going. And speaking of work, you start the book out by describing that loving your work and go a long way to helping you achieve your goals that you thought were unattainable. But right now, if you look at companies, we're facing disengagement rates that are unheard of. 70 to 85% according to a partner

are disengaged at work. I think they're not motivated for what they're doing. A lot of them, as we described earlier, don't understand what problem it is that they're even there at work to solve. They're not in tune or have a line of sight with the strategy of the company. But you lay out some great common habits and attitudes that you found in professionals who actually love what they do. And I thought maybe that would be a good place to go because I think if the listener hears some of those, it may help them understand.

Maybe these are habits that they need to think about. Are they doing them themselves in their daily work environment? Yes, but I also think it's important to understand that this satisfaction for work and this engagement actually comes from what are the root cause behind that. And in my experience for the past 25 to 30 years, I would say that obviously the work environment, it is important, but what is even more important is the internal environment, which is basically how you think about yourself and your work. And what I find to be the main reason why people actually are dissatisfied or become dissatisfied with the work is as soon as you come into a job and you learn how to perform a task. It's almost like you

log out because now you know how you do it and then you start to perform your tasks on habit. That's what I call the activity-based behavior. That is so common among professionals. And the reason why we have this like performing on habit is that we are fundamentally lazy, we are energy-conserving creatures and that's the fact. So it's not a personal thing that I am lazy and you are not. We are all lazy. I am as lazy as anyone else. Okay, that's it. But the thing that we operate on habit is that we don't think very much when we do things. And what happens over time is that we actually become less insightful in how we perform vad det gör på en moment är att vi faktiskt har en lös insidefull i hur vi performer.

Och så när vi har en viss jobbet att göra det fäster, göra det bättre, produce mer och alldeles, det har en stor stress för oss, för vi inte vet att det är stark. Det är kanske som vi har thrown i ett tennis match och du inte vet hur det är att playe tennis. till ett tännis match, och du inte vet hur att plöta ett tännis. Och också när du är performant här, vad som är att du är level av fatt, går ner över tid, för vi säger även mer energi, den är att du är värsen och du är performant. Och då är du startat att göra en lort av mistaken. Jag är en liten mistaken som du har gjort.

Du är också bort, den är att du ska starta på kastanet, work. You also get bored, which means that you want to start to procrastinate, which leads to to do lists and missteadlines and so forth. So that there is, I would say that the dissatisfaction and disengagement is very often self-inflicted among people. And I know that this might sound a little bit politically incorrect because we have this focus on we improve the environment, employee experience and all these things. But I call it from much more scientific biological standpoint. And this is basically what I've seen for the past 25, 30 years.

So I think that the key challenge that anyone that really wants to thrive and be successful and healthy at work is to develop some kind of red alerts, basically saying that, okay, now I have a tendency to be lazy when I shouldn't. I should actually spend energy here to challenge myself, because it's the experience of being challenged that it actually enables intrinsic motivation. That is to love the experience of doing. I think a lot of what you're saying overings true for so many of us. I sometimes refer to this as the pinball machine effect.

So many people go throughout their work day or their life letting the game of pinball play them because they get caught up with all the distractions all the noises all the things that are around them. But it takes on wavering focus to really hone in on how do you yourself play the game learn the intricacies of going on challenge yourself and get better. because the use of going on, challenge yourself and get better. So I think you bring up a great point. And maybe if a listener on the surface kind of understands what intrinsic motivation is, could you give them a more defined representation of how you describe it? Well, the way I describe it is that interesting motivation is when you engage in activity for

the experience, the activity gives you. It is the experience of being fully immersed, fully alive. You lose sense of time, like flow. We all have experienced it sometime, but most of us don't really know what actually enables that sometime. But most of us don't really know what actually enables that experience. I think this is an addictive experience. We want to relieve that again and again. It's almost like you experience all emotions at the same time. You have the pain of being truly engaged because that draws energy. You have the anxiety a little bit around you and

anxiety on that level is good because it shortens your senses, hands, your performance, but then you also have the excitement of breaking new ground, seeing new things in the activity, thinking differently. Also you have the sense of the accomplishment in it. So that's how I find it. It's the experience of being alive, I would say. It sounds a little bit philosophic, but if people really take a step back and think about this, they have experienced this in different moments. But the trick is to then take control over this so you can actually put yourself into that experience no matter what you're doing.

This is the PassionStark podcast with our guest, Stefan Falk. We'll be right back. This episode is sponsored in part by Shopify. Hear that little chitching. That's the sound of another sale on Shopify. And the moment another business dream becomes reality. Whether you're selling vintage clothing, fresh roasted coffee, stylish footwear, or the newest skin care line, Shopify simplifies selling online, and in person,

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it is your turn to get serious about selling and try Shopify today. This is Possibility powered by Shopify. Sign up for a $1 per month trial period at Shopify.com slash PassionStruck, all lowercase. Go to Shopify.com slash PassionStruck to take your business to the next level today. Shopify.com slash PassionStruck. Thank you so much for listening to the show. I love hearing from all of you. And I love the fact that you have all been great to our sponsors because they are the ones that keep the show going as well. You can check out all the sponsors at passionstruck.com slash deals. You'll find all the codes and URLs, all the things are there. So please consider supporting those who support the show. Now back to my conversation with Stefan Falk. Last year, I interviewed Ilet Fishback. I'm not sure if you're familiar with her, but she's a well-known behavioral scientist at the University of Chicago,

boost school business, and she has been studying the science of motivation for decades, and she put out a book last year, get it done, the science of motivation. And in it, she said that in Transnac motivation is the best predictor of engagement and just about everything that we do. Do you agree with that? Totally. It is also the moment where we perform at our best. So I totally agree with that. Totally agree with that. Well, I think that to reach this ultimate zone of performance,

Well, I think that to reach this ultimate zone of performance, we must experience pain for growth. And I recently did a solo episode on this, which I call the value of pain to our growth. And I think it's something that you and I have a common thinking on. And I wanted to ask you, why should we view emotional and psychological pain as a real and tangible opportunity to grow? Because it's the greatest evidence that you actually are in a moment of growth or the growth opportunity. That's the pain, okay? I get a little bit sad if I think about sentiment in our society and the world's in our companies. it's almost like we should protect each other from any type of pain. We should make life as easy and as painless as possible. If you think

about that and you put that type of sentiment into any other area, let's say we're going to develop a software, okay, and the question is then how do we develop the best possible software ever? That is completely reliable without any bugs and what not. Let's not have any users on it. Because users actually discover bugs, I would say the best predictor that you have something to develop when you feel pain. And it's certainly the case when you deal with other people. People you don't relate to and so forth, which is a very common problem I think, and part of the work, this satisfaction work. It seems almost impossible for many of the professionals I meet to establish a good productive work relationships with all their colleagues,

and that creates a lot of pain, but that pain is actually a signal for me, okay, I need to rethink how I do when I interact with this person. Nothing wrong with this person is different for me. That's a good thing. I can learn something from this person. Yes, and I think we've all had our stumbles with letting those relationships get in the way. And they do cause a lot of pressure for us and how we're functioning. Because if we don't have a relationship

that we think is on a solid deal, it's absolutely going to impact our mindset when we come to work and how we're thinking about performing and how we actually do perform. And in the book that you say that this pressure that we often feel is best dealt with by how we manage our mind and you indicate that intrinsic motivation is the key to overcoming it. I don't want to ask how long does it take to rewire your brain, be able to intrinsically motivate yourself?

The brain basically rewires, of course not fully, but rewires every time you try something new, every time you try to think in a new way, you affect the brain. So if you repeat that a few times, so if you take for instance dealing with boredom, okay, everybody is bored by some type of task or whatever situation it is. And eventually if you don't master intrinsic motivation, all tasks will become boring after some time. You will lose interest in them. Now what is a really smart way to deal with for instance boredom?

And why is it smart? Well boredom has the negative effects for your whole work experience as well as create backlogs and whatever for you. Well, a really smart way to deal with that is to, first of all, you should have a red lurk in your head saying, okay, now I experience boredom. Now I'm being lazy. Now I need to challenge myself when I think about and pursue this task. That's the first thing you should try to train. You should view boredom as a sign of, now I'm lazy, because there is no boring tasks. There are only boring ways to think about tasks, which is lazy way. So thinking about tasks. You can always perform a task in a better, more interesting, more developing, and more exciting way. End of story, that's the fact.

What you should do then, when you feed boredom, and you feed boredom toward a certain task, for instance, when I do my text return, which is maybe not the most exciting thing, but I managed to do that in an interesting way. You can, you should then define an exciting outcome for that task, what you really want to achieve. And that outcome should push yourself to develop your skills, hence perform the task in a new and different and better way. That's the criteria for the exciting outcome.

And you can define an exciting outcome in three different ways. You can either decrease the time for the task, compared to the time you usually spend with it. You can increase the complexity of the task. You do it in a more complex way. You can add stuff to when you perform the task. Or you could also end or think about the value of for yourself

and for others by performing the task. Decreasing time, I find it the easiest way to actually create excitement around any type of task. Just cutting the time in half. All of a sudden you need to activate your brain to actually solve a really interesting problem. How can I do this, for instance, in half the time? That becomes interesting. With my clients, I use this daily decreasing time to make sure that I sharpen my mind, that I always improve some kind of aspect of my coaching of my clients. I use it in different ways. I can think about now I'm going to meet John. So let's say instead of having one hour with John, if I only had 10 minutes, okay, what would be a super exciting, really valuable outcome

for John, if don't the 10 minutes in that, okay? Now I will use one hour, but still it really sharpens me to think about what to achieve together with you love that power. Well, speaking of time management, and I love that you brought up trying to challenge yourself to do taxes in a better and more creative way because I've already been working on my 2022 taxes, and it's usually something that I procrastinated on to the last second, but this year I was like, I just wanna go into this

full force, get it done, figure out, and easier way to do it. So I'm not waiting till the end of a march to get it done. But in the book, you give this advice that you should put your whole life in your calendar when it comes to time management and stop using checklist or other tools. Why do you believe that and how do you personally use your calendar? Well, I think that in order to avoid unnecessary stress for your mind, you should try to consolidate your whole life in your calendar because the mind responds really well when you have sort of one integrated view, when you don't have it scattered all over the place, okay? That creates stress in itself. The mind is like geared toward thinking in integration, okay? Now I know. It enables you

to do a lot of things if you have everything in your calendar. I always use my calendar for everything. So let's say I have all my clients sessions in my calendar. I have all the individual work I plan to do in my calendar. If I sit at home one night and then I an idea pops up in my head, oh this I should do with John the next coaching session. I open my calendar. I write in the idea in the headline, and then I place this calendar or whatever event on a time where I think I should pursue or elaborate on that idea. It doesn't mean that I would do it at that time, it just means that I have it in my calendar.

It's in my life, okay. This enables you to do a lot of things. In my case, what I always do is in the morning I have my morning coffee and then I look in my calendar and I see what I have planned for today and usually I have some preparation already done for some of the stuff. And then I have my client session starts around 9 a.m. in the morning and then now it's like 6.30 or 6 o'clock. So I always have some time, I can do some stuff, you have nothing scheduled. So then I think about myself, what am I in the mood of doing now? Oh, maybe if it's now Tuesday, the thing I have planned for on Friday, that's a good thing. I can actually do that already now. Okay. So it's also being ahead of schedule, it enables you to do that.

So and then depending on how I feel about myself, either I then shift, if I do the Friday thing already today Tuesday, I then can then shift it to Tuesdays, I know when I did it, or I can leave it on Friday, if I feel that my energy level is not on top. So, when Friday comes and that reminds the pings on in my phone to do that, I've already done it, it gives me energy boost. So I find the calendar probably the most underused tool that we have that really can help us get a sense of control or a situation. Yes, because it really does get you focused on the daily goals and you can put a time limit around how long you have to achieve each one of them. And you can also do another thing. And that is that you can create something which I think

I call pre-FAB or some preliminary thoughts for how to pursue an activity that you put in the calendar. And that is particularly useful when it comes to things that you procrastinate doing. Okay, so you can just like when you write the calendar entry, you're going to do this thing on Friday, and you put it in on Tuesday, you can just say, what do I think is important when I pursue that? What should be my outcome of that? And how do I think?

I would pursue that. Just a few words. And then you sort of say, what happens there is that you activate your subconsciousness, which is actually the strongest part of the mind, because it works 24-7, and one of the purposes of the subconscious mind is to help you make decisions as well as work toward your goals. And by writing these things in the calendar entry, you actually actually activated. So when you come to that calendar entry on Friday, you're actually more prepared without actually consciously preparing for it. Yeah, I think that's some great advice.

I want to get into now really what I thought was the heart of your book, but I'm going to introduce it in this way. I had the opportunity to interview one of my long-term mentors last year, astronaut Wendy Lawrence, who I've known since I was at the Naval Academy when she was my physics teacher. And one of the things that she talks about often when she gives speeches today is that you have to give yourself permission to dream your dream, have to give yourself permission to dream your dream, but she says she runs into so many young people today who stop at the first sign of struggle. And she tells them that her key to achieving her aspiration and it's something that you

bring up in the book was to become detached from her outcomes, but in love with her work to reach them. And I believe that this is a philosophy you agree with. Why is that the case? Well, it is the case. Because when you love the experience of doing, you will always feel accomplished and good after you have done it, actually no matter what outcome you create. And cultivating that ability to think about an activity that makes it lovable. I think actually that's the most important life skill we actually can learn besides logical thinking and a few other things, which is also very important. Because think about it, young

people give up because when they face a challenge, they don't know how to think about that challenge to make it interesting, to make it lovable, to take it all. And that goes for everything in life. No matter what goal you have, it could be a trivial thing. It will entail challenges or situations where your sort of gut reaction is negative toward it. If you cannot shake that and put yourself into a more sort of intrinsically motivated, loving thing, it's interesting, mode, approaching that. You will not do them. And that means that you will not reach your goals. Yes. And you discussed this activity,

focused behavior at the beginning of the episode and you alluded to it that it's become the recipe of treasury and hating what we do because we go into this autopilot mode and in the book you talk about The need to do exciting outcome based behavior which you call FEO or focusing on exciting outcomes. How common is it that you find FEO? And why do you think that as humans were wired to choose immediate

gratification over the benefits of having the weight to get to these outcomes that we want, which forces us into more of the activity-based versus the FEO outcomes? Well, you asked two questions. So I start with the last one, our need for instant gratification. Well that's something that is hard-wired in us and that's how that more primitive reward system operates. You can't change that. That's there. You cannot operate it.

Take it out of your brain. What you can do is to develop the higher functioning sort of reward system we have. And that is the reward system that we actually steer that and guide that with our higher thinking, which is then placed in a prefrontal lobe in our brain, okay? But that requires practice. And one of the best practices you can have

is to take charge and you decide what would be a rewarding, exciting outcome of any type of activity. And the more you do that, the stronger this higher level reward system becomes. And it balances out. The problem with a weak higher reward system that is in the govern by the prefrontal lobe is that it's very slow. en av de stora, höjra, avgör systemen som är i denna avgörningarna för att få en liten liten liten avgörningarna. För det är det som är väldigt liten avgörningarna, för det är det som är avgörningarna avgörningarna

för att få en liten liten avgörningarna för att få en liten avgörningarna för att få en liten avgörningarna för att få en liten avgörningarna för att få en liten avgörningarna för att få en liten avgörningarna för att få en liten avgörningarna för att få en liten avgörningarna Så när det är en mål, så är det att du är basically är en prisen för en mer basic, simpel av revert system. Nu har du, hur kommen är det som de är på en stor utgång? En av min spärr är extremt på en stål. Är det en stor spärr? extremely uncommon. Do I have unique experiences in this? Well, if you look at research, for instance,

on how many superstars there are in any given organization, it ranges from maybe 1% to 10%. Okay, I would say the vast majority of any population in an organization, they are not focused on exciting outcomes, very few are. Why is it so challenging for people to be even outcome oriented, not the activity oriented? I mean outcome oriented is basically when you say, okay, this is what I need to achieve in a tangible, measurable way. Okay, what's then going to be the activities to do that? Why is it that we are so poor in that? Because you know about OCRs, objective and key results,

that is sort of the popular thing now in companies. And I think I've seen OCRs from like 15, maybe 20 different companies, okay, on different level in the companies. And one of the most important thing is that the key results, det är kanske 20 olika kompis. En av de mest importaste faller är att det är en kyl result. Det alltid är en amerikansk eller en mässjubel matrik. När jag känner att det är okej, det är att jag ser att det är ett aktivitivitivitivitivitivitivitivitivitivitivitivitivitivitivitivitivitivitivitivitivitivitivitivitivitivitivitivitivitivitivitivitivitivitivitivitivitivitivitivitivitivitivitivitivitivitivitivitivitivitivitivitivitivitivitivitivitivitivitivitivitivitivitivitivitivitivitivitivitivitivitivitivitivitivitivitivitivitivitivitivitivitivitivitivitivitivitivitivitivitivitivitivitivitivitivitivitivitivitivitivitivitivitivitivitivitivitivitivitivitivitivitivitivitivitivitivitivitivitivitivitivitivitivitivitivitivitivitivitivitivitivitivitivitivitivitivitivitivitivitivitivitivitivitivitivitivitivitivitivitivitivitivitivitivitivitivitivitivitivitivitivitivitivitivitivitivitivitivitivitivitivitivitivitivitivitivitivitivitivitivitivitivitivitivitivitivitivit It's not this thing. So, there seems to be sort of a systematic, almost lack of skill and focus on defining outcomes. And why is that? Well, many reasons.

I think one reason is evolutionary. Because if you think about us as human beings, of the 200,000 years we have existed, the larger part of those 200,000 years, the outcomes has been defined for us, and that has to be survived the day, to get food, to get shelter, to whatever. That's been the case for 199,900 years or whatever. So we are not really trained, I think, as a species in thinking and outcomes.

We need to acquire that taste and that skill. That was a long answer, but I think that gives my perspectives on it. Well, I'm going to take this another step. I told you at the beginning of the show that I'm a veteran and one of my favorite episodes that I did from last year as I interviewed Professor Nate Zinser who has been teaching performance psychology at West Point for decades. who has been teaching performance psychology at West Point for decades. And he came out with a great book last year called The Confident Mind. And he describes how he has coached so many military leaders to zone in their performance on this outcome

that they want to achieve. And I understand you yourself have had some experience working with special forces, specifically on Navy SEAL teams. And I wanted to ask you, did you see a difference when you interacted with them collectively, then you've seen working with other groups when it comes to outcome focus? Extremely, so, extremely.

So, I mean, first of all, I would say that sitting in a room together with them, I think that I have never ever spent time Det är så extremt. Först är det att sitta i ett rum med dem. Jag har inte alltid varit i ett rum med Alla som är så välgående och så hambl och så fokuserar om vad de måste developa om de kan bli bättre. Det är alltid att se om det är så mycket att göra. develop, how they can become better, always looking at not looking at so much what they are doing well, but looking at what they can do better and trying to figure out what is

the outcome they have after. I mean, they basically have rewired their brains into that. And I think that it's a necessity because in their line of business, so to speak, life and death is at stake. And you tend to become really self-aware, and you need to be self-aware in those environments. You need to face the fact that we all know that we are born in complete and we also pass in complete and the purpose in life is actually to try to become a little bit less incomplete when we pass. So it's learning all the time. The short

answer is yes, a major difference when I engage with these groups. Well, one of the things that I found true in those elite units is that there is a very open dialogue regardless of your rank to receiving negative feedback and analysis from your peer group about what is going well, what's not going well. And I know for a lot of us receiving negative feedback can cause us to be very unmotivated. But in those units, it's quite the opposite.

And I think what happens many of us is rather than embracing difficult people, we end up avoiding them. And I think it's the opposite thing that we should do. And what I read in the book is you believe the same thing. And you explain your reasoning on that? Okay, so let's say you and I, we don't relate well together.

And I think that you're always so cumbersome to engage with John, he never agrees with me or whatever and it shoots my ideas down and he doesn't do what he says gonna do or whatever Okay, and then my natural inclination is try to avoid you as much as possible Okay, and that's understandable because we are fundamentally socially individuals and it's very important for us It's psychological need to feel that we relate well to all the people around us, that we are respected and so forth. That's an evolutionary biological need we have. So when we don't, that need is not satisfied, we tend to shy away. Now, the problem with that is that you, John, you're not the only person in the world that has the profile that you have.

Okay, so at the end of the day, I will end up meeting other Jones in my life. So either I take on the challenge now to figure out how to manage myself, I want to emphasize, in a different and better way, to expand my own social skills in establishing a really great working relationship with you, okay? Because the skills I build there are very useful well beyond interacting with you. It's interacting with people similar like you, okay, in my future. So basically by doing that, I put myself in a position to shape my own destiny. Now, this is hard for many people to disassociate themselves so much from a very sensitive situation. There are two things I tell clients

that they can think have in their head. Now, I, so this is one way, I can either view you, John, then, if we don't relate well as a new equipment in the June. And by mastering that equipment, I build a new set of muscles, okay? But until I have mastered that equipment, okay, it's going to be pretty painful. But when I do, I build that new muscle. That's one way of thinking about it. There's even more powerful way to think about, which I use myself all the time when I need someone

a wonderful way to think about, which I use myself all the time when I meet someone that I think basically have whatever this pickle believes or whatever it can be, is that I think about this person that I have this negative thoughts about. This is actually someone's kid. Would I like anyone to have these type of thoughts about my son? No, I would not like that. And then all of a sudden, I start to see the thing more thoughts about my son. No, I would not like that. And then all of a sudden, I start to see the thing more clearly about the situation and also have some compassion for the person who have been brought to me. No, I think those are great points of view to have because three others, as you would want yourself to be treated, is bold and rural. One of the other things I found interesting,

and this is different than relationships, it's about how we're managing our time, and I'll go back to the calendar that we talked about a little bit earlier, as you say in the book that you've got to meet a professional who truly has too much to do. What do you mean by that, and why most of us believe that we have too much to do, but in reality, it's because of the way that we're managing our motivation and the way that we're operating our day. My claim is based on years of experience working with people that start off saying, okay, I have too much to do. I have too much to do. I cannot do this.

I need to prioritize. Prioritization is the beginning. Everybody is looking for that. And in the beginning, let's say 25 years ago, I really believe that, yeah, they have too much to do. But then when I see a pattern, I try to understand why is this pattern? So maybe like 20 years ago,

I started to ask some simple questions, okay, why don't we sort of then you sit down We take a pen and paper and we write down everything you're supposed to do and then for each item We try to understand, okay, what's the purpose and I want to understand what's the purpose of this and how do you go about doing this and all these things and blah blah blah Okay, and what I found and I still find is that people very often I mean most of the time was said almost always they cannot All these things and blah blah blah. Och vad jag har gjort och jag har nog också gjort är att folk är väldigt ofta, jag minnade ena tidigare, och de har alltid varit. De kan inte även explenas till mig vad är det för att göra det här och hur de går om det och hur de skulle gå om det.

Så de har spämt basically no time thinking about how to actually execute all of everything they have on the plate. Now, why is that? Well, that goes back to what I talked about, this activity-based behavior, that when we perform stuff that we do, like, over and over again in the same way, we actually lose sight on how we do things. So, when we are put in a pressure situation, we don't even know where to start. I would say that's the main reason I've seen.

Okay. And this. Okay. And Stefan, a question I always like to ask at the end of the interview is, if you were someone who picked up your book or a listener on this podcast tuning in, what would be the most fundamental messages you hope that they would take from it? Make it a priority, a life priority, to always challenge yourself at least once a day at work. At least once a day.

Address a task that you think is uninteresting or boring and make it interesting and exciting to actually pursue or deal with something that you think is uncomfortable, find a way to think about it, that makes it more exciting to do whatever. But, or it could be something that you perform really well and say to yourself, I want to top the way I do this. At least once a day. If you do that once a day, you're building the most important life skill there is, which is intrinsic motivation. Okay, well great. And Stefan, if a listener would like to learn more about you, what is the best way for them to do that? It's through my website and it's learn to love your work.com. So learn to love your work in one word.com. Okay well great well stuff on it was really an honor to have you on podcast. Congratulations again on the launch of your book and I highly encourage

anyone out there whether you're looking for motivation in your career or how to motivate other aspects of your life to pick up a copy of this. Thank you, John. And it's been an honor. Thanks for it really for having me. Okay. Your welcome. Honor was mine. I thoroughly enjoyed that interview with Stefan Falk. And I wanted to thank Stefan, St. Martin's Press and Hannah Clark for the honor and privilege of having him on today's show. Links to all things to fun will be in the show notes at passionstruck.com. Please use our website links if you purchase any of the books from the authors that we feature on the show.

It helps to support the show and make it free for our listeners. Advertiser deals and discount codes are in one convenient place at passionstruck.com slash deals. Please consider supporting those who support the show. You can find our videos on YouTube at passionstruck clips or our main channel at John R. Miles. And I'm on LinkedIn. You can also find me on Instagram and Twitter at John R. Miles.

You're about to hear a preview of the PassionStruck podcast interview I did with Matt Higgins, who is a co-founder and CEO of the Private Investment Farm, RSC Ventures, and an executive fellow at the Harvard Business School, where he co-teaches the course, Moving Beyond DTC. Matt is a guest shark on ABC's Shark Tank, seasons 10 and 11, and he will soon star

in his own spin-off, Business Hunters, also produced by executive producer Mark Burnett. Matt is the author of the new book, Burn the Boats. Cost Plan B and unleash your full potential. It would be very simplistic to say, oh, just burn the boats. That's it, right? Just to make no provisions, just go all in. That's actually not what I'm saying. What I'm saying is what we all want to do is to burn the boats and

dejetizen our backup plan and our crutches. We don't respect ourselves when we hatch. Nobody wants to hatch, but it's easier said than done. So the book is meant to be an actual blueprint for how do you burn the boats? How do you go all in? The fee for this show is that you share it with family or friends when you find something interesting or useful.

If you know someone who's interested in intrinsic motivation, then definitely share today's episode with them. The greatest compliment that you can give us is when you share the show with those that you love or care about. In the meantime, do your best to apply what you hear on the show so that you can live what you listen. And until next time, live live, Ash and Strut. you