The Learning Leader Show With Ryan Hawk - 377: Casper Ter Kuile - How To Turn Everyday Activities Into Soulful Practices

Episode Date: August 2, 2020

The Learning Leader Show With Ryan Hawk Text LEARNERS to 44222 Full show notes at www.LearningLeader.com Episode #377: Casper Ter Kuile - How To Turn Everyday Activities Into Soulful Practices Notes: Excellence: Always learning Commitment - Willingness to go deep Generosity Patience Casper spent his 30th birthday with nuns. He's not very religious but realized he had a lot in common with them. They care about the same things. They're very honest. What he learned from his mother and father: Father - Do well when you follow the rules. Be detail oriented. Honest. Trustworthy. Mother - She has a more "cheeky side." She breaks the rules. Deep connection isn't just about relationships with other people. It's about feeling the fullness of being alive. It's about being enveloped in multiple layers of belonging within, between, and around us. Four Levels of connection: Connecting with yourself Connecting with the people around you Connecting with the natural world Connecting with the transcendent Tradition -- "We mistake tradition for convention. Tradition is the beating heart, convention is the outer expression." A college football team can change their uniforms and not lose tradition. The uniforms are a form of outer expression. You change symbols as you grow. Preaching at its best is a conversation with the congregation. Ancient texts are so valuable. The Bible is a description of how life is... Casper shares what it was like growing up in England and not fitting in... His home life was great. His school life was awful. Connection: Willing to change Forged in flames Honesty & commitment to each other Science is stable - we value being in tribes. There's less of a connection to places and family. There is a decline in religious communities. Why has there been a decrease? Productivity has become so important. To be productive, relationships are sacrificed. Priorities have shifted. We are missing opportunities to go deep with people At work: Younger people show up at a job for the meaning of the company... The military: Soldiers care about the people they are shoulder to shoulder with... They honor their culture. As a manager: Replicate water cooler moments (virtually). 30 minutes snippets on zoom. Invite people to go deeper. Use question prompts - create safe spaces. It's an interesting time for relationship design. He's created "The Confession Group" The leader needs to model vulnerability but hold the boundaries. Have a place where people can go to admit they screwed up -- 10 minutes to share, 10 minutes to ask questions Discipline: Take a tech sabbath -- Each Friday, Casper hides his phone and computer. It's rest time. Sabbath - "The apex of life." What we practice is what we become "We all worship something. We just don't know what we're worshiping." The paradigm of how we see ourselves in the world.

How can I create the conditions in which people have meaning-oriented conversations? So it's about creating the culture exactly, as you said, that allow people to have conversations that are actually enriching at a deeper level than just like, hey, let's hit these sales targets. Because if you are just going to rely on the extrinsic rewards of, okay, you're going to get a bonus because we hit these targets, you're going to get, it makes for a very thin culture. Because as soon as someone gets a better offer somewhere else, they're gone. We are opening up applications for our next learning leader circle. We only do this once per year.

And think back to the great conversation I had with the legendary Jim Collins episode 216. He said, Ryan, before you get too caught up in the why, in the what? You need to first be very intentional about your who. Who will be your friends? Who will be your mentor? Who will you help? Who will you choose to surround yourself with? That will be the single greatest determining factor in your long-term success.

And I would ask you the same question. Who are you surrounding yourself with? Do you want to be surrounded by growth-oriented leaders that are willing to push you? We've added specific curriculum and elements so that by the end of the year, you'll have tangible outcomes to measure your growth and be a more effective leader, both personally and professionally. These groups are intentionally curated and kept small. Time and again, the thing that people say they love about these groups is the relationships

they're able to build with one another in a short period of time. If you'd like to apply, go to learning leader circle.com. That's learning leader circle.com to apply. Welcome to the Learning Leader Show presented by Brixie and Meyer. I am Ryan Hawk. Thank you so much for being here. Text learners to 4-4-2-2-2. In order to join tens of thousands of learning leaders from all over the world,

receive mindful Monday updates what I'm reading, writing, watching, thinking about. Also give you more details about how my book, Welcome to Management, will help you become a more effective leader. Text, learners to 442-222. Now on tonight's featured leader, the great Casper Ter Kyle, one of the coolest names ever, by the way. He is the author of a new bestselling book titled The Power of Ritual, Turning Everyday Activities into Soulful Practices. Casper is a Ministry Innovation Fellow at Harvard Divinity School and holds Masters of Divinity and Public Policy from Harvard University. A few of the topics we discussed.

What he learned, spending his 30th birthday with nuns. And why his answer probably surprises you. And then the four levels of connection and how understanding them will make you a better leader. And then he shares useful ideas, practical ideas on how to lead a remote team. Ladies and gentlemen, it's so good with Casper Terkyle. I am fascinated by people who sustain excellence. It's what I study for a living, really, and then I oscillate between studying and teaching.

And in this moment, for now, I get to study a little bit and learn. And I'm curious, Casper, from your perspective, when you think about the people in your life and those who you study who have sustained excellence over an extended period of time, what have you found to be some of the commonalities among those people? That's a beautiful question. I mean, I think the first thing is definitely people who are always learning, right? Whether it's reading new books, having new experiences, meeting new people,

always trying to kind of put what they know or what they think they know in conversation with new contexts and new perspectives. So that it's always being refined. It's always being enriched. It's always being tested. And then the other thing is really about commitment. I think the people who I admire the most go deepest in their commitment. And for me, that's been most clear over the last couple of years in conversations with

Catholic nuns in their 70s and 80s. People who have just, like their sustained excellences in the realm of the heart, you know, or in the realm of the soul, just that such generosity, such gentleness, such patience, things which I really struggle with, they just, they have worked it. man and yeah so but and and they've gotten there by putting themselves in a situation where they just have to keep at it every day interesting uh i was raised catholic um my mom would always tell me about the catholic nuns when she was raised they would whack them back when they were little kids right different nuns they don't they don't do that anymore i know but i would she'd say that

maybe some that's maybe i would have been better off if they would have done that to me growing up this first time catholic nuns ever have been brought up in five plus years casper i am So that you spent some time with them. What was it like? What are they? I mean, it's hard to generalize, but I mean, you've spent time for your experience. What was it like? Yes.

I spent my 30th birthday with them about three and a half years ago in a very interesting kind of three-day conversation where there was a group of millennials like myself who were kind of not particularly religious. And then a group of these women religious, as they're called these nuns. And it was a big age gap, obviously, but also a big kind of belief gap, right? these people who are not religious and these people who are super religious. But what was so interesting, Ryan, was that within a couple of hours, we actually realized that we really cared about the same things.

One of the millennials in the group, and this project has grown into a project called Nuns and Nuns, because people who are non-religious are sometimes described in the sociological literature as N-O-N-E-S, nuns. So in this Nuns and Nuns meeting, one of the younger people said, you know, all I want to do is change my life in the context of community to serve, other people. And one of these women in their 70s said, yes, that's what we call religious life. And it was just this like aha moment of being like, even though all of these like things on the surface make us feel very separate, the thing that we share, this kind of passion for changing

the world, for improving ourselves, for being in deep community, that that was completely shared. And so it changed my perspective. And it's easy to idolize this kind of vision of community of people who live together every day and serve the poor, et cetera. And, you know, that they're somehow more evolved in some way. But what I really appreciated about the sisters, they were extremely honest about saying, you know, community is wonderful and it's awful, right? Like, living this kind of life is the most rewarding and the most difficult.

They were very honest about their experience. So I don't know. I felt like I just got a window into the kind of spiritual maturity, you know, that these women exhibited. What was awful about it? Oh, just that you have to live with other people. Don't we all, though? I mean, I guess it's like a marriage, right?

Like you get to see the best of each other. You get to see the worst of each other. And that's no difference if you live together in a company. So I want to talk about your mom and your dad, if that's cool for a second. So you dedicate your book to them. But not only that, I also published my first book this year. And so I thought a lot about the acknowledgments and the dedication and in addition to obviously getting the book done. But I spent a lot of time on both those parts.

And you said your father who taught you when to follow the rules and your mother who taught you how to change them. Can you share, can you unpack that a little bit for me, both your mom and your dad about what it means to win to follow the rules and taught you how to also change them? Well, I've been very, very lucky in the lottery of life. My parents have both been extraordinary people and still are. My parents are both entrepreneurs. And so I was raised with a lot of kind of self-starting energy. My dad actually went to business school here in the US before moving to London. And I have three younger sisters.

So my mom, especially raised the four of us, but also, you know, set up a pottery import business and was a crossing guard and set up all sorts of great creative projects. And my dad is someone who's very oriented around, you know, you do well when you follow the rules. And in part, that's because he comes from a very privileged background where if you do certain things, things will work out. But he's very detail-oriented. He's very passionate about honesty, about trustworthiness, about, yeah, behaving the way that you would want to see on the front page of a newspaper, right? Just that sense of that there are certain ways in which you conduct yourself, even if no one else thinks you should. And so he's always, he's always kind of encouraging us to kind of live, live in that way. And then my mom has maybe a bit more of a cheeky side and looks at the world and says,

you know, not every system is set up as it should be. And sometimes the best way to change it is to break the rules or to bend the rules or to just go ahead and do something when everyone else says, you know, that you shouldn't. So she has a bit of a rebellious streak. And I think I was lucky enough to hopefully inherit the best of both. And I think about that a lot in the context of my work, you know, where I'm thinking a lot about the structure of community and the structure of religious communities, especially, and thinking about how traditions change.

And on the one hand, you have to really be respectful and understand the depth of a tradition. But at the same time, traditions are always changing. And so you have to be willing to push things forward or to reimagine them. So that's how I try and think of them both. So this may be completely left field, but I thought of it. that as you're talking about traditions and traditions changing. So I'm not sure how much of an American football fan you are. But I'll bring,

but I'll bring up an example. So I'm from Ohio and the college football team that is most prominent in our state is the Ohio State Buckeyes. And it's a very tradition rich school. It has a ton of alumni. It's a massive school. They're all over the world. And it's funny, though, a few years ago, maybe more than a few years ago, they started experimenting with changing their

uniform because, and they're not the only school, a bunch of schools have done this now, because young kids, the 16, 17, 18 year old kids that they recruit who are in high school, they love seeing these different types of styles, these cool like all black uniforms with different helmets and different, it looks differently. However, what happens is the, typically the older fans, more traditional, start saying, you can't do this. We're scarlet and gray. You can't change the helmet. You can't change the uniform.

Yet the young people who they're trying to attract because they need the top recruits in order to field a good team, a winning team, they love it. And so there's this dichotomy where the older tradition rich people hate it, the younger people love it, and they steer a little bit towards the younger generation because that's the future. That's what's going to help them create a winning team, which is ultimately what the alumni and the tradition of people. Correct. So I'm wondering, like, what do you think about that aspect of this tradition versus the younger generation of changing? It's such a good example. It's such a good example, Ryan, because it illustrates exactly the dynamic that is always true.

First of all, that we think that tradition means what we grew up with. We like to think that tradition is something that's, you know, centuries old or decades old. You know, I am sure, and I don't even know this, but I'm sure that the Buckeyes, when they first played, did not have those two colors of the skull and gray. That came over time. That was invented. Every tradition was once an innovation, right? But there is a sort of a loyalty to what we know, what we grew up with.

And this is a really important point about tradition, that we mistake tradition for convention. So if you imagine, and this comes, again, I'm giving you all sorts of Catholics today, But this is Thomas Merton, the great, kind of writer philosopher, monk of the 20th century, who talked about tradition is the beating heart and convention is the outer shell. So convention are the things that we recognize, like the colors of a uniform or a helmet. And we often attach ourselves to those outer expressions that we know, that we understand, and we want to hold on to them. But tradition is the beating heart that lives inside convention, right?

So I would say that for the Buckeye football team, what's the beating heart is the commitment to each other, is the ambition to win, is the excellence and the determination and the brotherhood and the family and all of those things that are alive and that are expressed by those symbols. But when those symbols no longer resonate with a new generation, you have to change the symbols. Because what happens if you don't is that they ossify and then you're left just with this like husk, this empty shell. And honestly, that's the challenge that religious institutions are in right now. There's this growing gap that younger people are still deeply spiritual. They're hungry for meaning, they're hungry for community. But the religious institutions are holding on to a previous way of

expressing those longings. And that's why we're seeing this kind of growing gap between people's individual spirituality and institutional religion. And so I think you always want to hold on to the, to some sort of thread of the symbols, right? You don't want to just start one day and be like, oh, we don't need helmets or we're going to start with a completely, right, hopefully there's some continuation. Otherwise, I understand it feels, it feels too much. So maybe there's like a scarlet and gray streak in the black or maybe along the side of the trousers. I don't know what it's going to be, but you have, you have to find new ways to express those eternal truths. When I think about church specifically, one of my primary,

mentors who I go to and I'm lucky to have one-on-one conversations with is the pastor of Southbrook Church's named Charlie Macman. He's been a guest on this show because he's had so much impact in my life. But one of the reasons that I think Charlie is so good and is so compelling and why people flock to his church and watch him on Facebook Live when the churches are not able to gather is because he's really adept at finding stories and knowledge out of books. the same books that I read and others read when it comes to leadership and community and team building. And sometimes he'll give, I call it. I'm like, how do you give a new talk every Sunday, man? But he's giving, he's giving his talk. He's preaching. And there's so much of it that is about your

actual real life that it feels like I'm just going to one of the best leadership coaches in the world. And for me, that draws me to that. And to me, that's what that's him, understanding that this is how we evolve. This is how we change. We don't just read scripture the whole time. That's part of it, no doubt. But I would say, and depending on the week, some of it is, there's Brne Brown, and there's probably Casper Ter Kyle coming in. There's other people where they're bringing in their work just as much or more. And that draws me as a, in a similar demographic to you, it draws me in to want to watch, to want to listen, to want to take notes. Yeah. And I mean, that's the best of preaching, right? Preaching at its best is always a

conversation between the person who's giving the talk or the sermon and the congregation that's listening and that's learning and that's living together. And so it's not just one-way traffic, right? The best preachers are in conversation with individuals during the week. And then they kind of sculpt a story, a collective story that they then mirror back to the congregation on a Sunday or whenever the congregation gathers. So there's that kind of conversation happening in the moment. moment, but then there's a second conversation which is between the sacred text and this moment in history. This is why I love text study as one of the kind of disciplines for personal growth, because in a way, you get to have a conversation with ancient wisdom from centuries and

millennia ago, and not just the original people who wrote those texts, but everyone who's commented on them since. And from my kind of theological perspective, a text like the Bible isn't there to tell us how to live, but it's a description of how life is. And in that kind of description, we get to see a mirror for ourselves and we get to say, well, how do I want to live? Like, what's important to me? What are the values that I want to express? What can I learn from this text about what happens if you do A or what happens if you do B? And, you know, what's really important to us? So it's kind of like, I imagine it as like stepping into a river of conversation and you just get to like swim in all the wisdom and like soak it up a little bit.

bit because it's it's you know we're not the first people to live life and to struggle with with jealousy or to struggle with anxiety like these are age old experiences that we can we can learn from other people okay love it um as a teenager so as a teenager casper yeah you thought the movie this a good movie you thought the movie you've got male was the greatest movie of all time i stand by it yeah no you still feel this way i mean it's it's it's it's It's an exceptionally good movie. I might now have expanded my brains. Gotcha.

But your least favorite scene, at least from what I've read, your least favorite scene is when Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan character is when they finally meet in person for the first time. And I know this gets a little bit more personal to you as to why this is your least favorite scene. But could you expand and share why you love that movie, but you didn't like that part? Yeah. So if anyone remembers the film, it's this kind of love story between two characters who, fall in love online, right? So they never meet each other. They have these kind of pseudonyms and they're in a chat room and they fall in love. And the very final scene in the movie is when they

meet in person. And I was always more interested in that in that longing, right? The longing for the other character, the imagining of how they would be that the sense of wanting to be connected then that actual scene at the end where they where they actually are connected. And you know, as a teenager, I struggled a lot with the experience of loneliness. I was in, so I grew up in England, and I went to a boys boarding school. And as a queer kid, like, that was not an easy experience, like 50 testosterone-fueled teenage boys and me. And so I, you know, I spent a lot of time on my own and I spent a lot of time just not fitting in and feeling like I didn't belong. I didn't, and like I didn't know where I would ever belong. You know, I wasn't particularly talented

at sport or even academically or there was there was nothing where i found like my people that came later in college thank goodness um but it was it was a real sense of like wow i i just not just kind of longing for for a romantic partner but like longing for the sense of friends longing for the sense of knowing what my path was longing for that that feeling like i i fit into the universe in which i was living and so that movie just expresses that kind of yearning in a way that still resonates right like I'm still that 14 year old inside that has that recognition. I mean, we are all kind of built and crafted based upon our life's experiences,

our upbrings, our parents, the people in our lives. And so what was it about the loneliness and the toughness that you had to develop from maybe an awkward and a time, at times a sad, I don't know if that's the right word, But there on your shoot at moments of sadness.

But what was it about that upbringing that led you to the work that you do today? They're so related. They're so related. And in a sense, it's really important that my home life was very loving and strong and supportive. And then it was this school life that felt very isolating. So I knew that it could be different. And I think that's one of the really important things that I'm grateful to my parents

for was like the knowledge that there could be a joyful belonging, right? like that sense of fitting in somewhere, a sense of being loved and loving people. And so when I left high school, I had this real sense of I wanted to write the wrongs of the world. And that was first expressed for me as a climate activist, someone who's really passionate about climate change issues. But then now more generally, just really being always very focused on this question of community and belonging. And so thinking about, you know, who doesn't fit in here or how do you? do I make people feel welcome? And that, you know, that's on a small level. Like if we're hosting, you know, friends over for dinner or there's a big group at my house, you know, I'm really

good at giving people little tasks to do so the introverts can be cutting carrots, you know, so you don't have to talk to everyone or you just give people responsibility so everyone feels like they have a role. Because a lot of meaning in life comes from fulfilling a role. So that's, you know, on a microscale. And then on a macro scale, just in terms of my work, really trying to find ways for people to connect with meaning, to connect with other people in a way that is deeper than just an everyday chit-chat. But really a sense of a deeper connection to the world around them, to themselves, to the people in their life,

and hopefully also to something kind of transcendent. And so I think that experience of loneliness made me passionate about connection in a way that otherwise I wouldn't have been at the same depth. Connection, which can lead to community. I'd like to talk briefly now, Casper. about community building because selfishly, this is something that I do in my line of work is build community around a mindset of being a growth-oriented person who realizes the more you learn, you then realize there's so much more to learn. And being surrounded by those types of people

is powerful. It's impactful. And I have, I've talked to you about my learning leader circles that I facilitate and run and teach and learn from. And it's it's incredibly gratifying work. I'm happy I was pushed to start it three years ago by my friend Doug Meyer. And because of that, though, it's led to me really studying how do I build and cultivate and continue to have us the community on this upward trajectory. And so that's why I was really curious to talk to you about. is what are some of the keys to connecting and then building a community?

I love that you say connecting and then building because one of the big things, you know, in a growth-oriented society, in a culture of constant self-improvement, it's really important that we start by affirming people's inherent goodness, right? That sense that who we are is already, you know, to use kind of theological words, like already beloved, already good enough, that we're starting from a place of sufficiency and out of that will inherently come a desire to grow. Because if we put it the other way around and we say, you know, Ryan, first of all, you have to change and become this and then you'll be worthy. That's a bad place to be, man. You don't want to be you don't want to be that way around

because then you're always going to be striving, always going to be striving and actually never feel like you're enough. So I love that you put that connection first and then growth. I think what you do with those small groups is the most successful strategy you can do for changing your life. It is every time, in every context that I've come across, the places that have the biggest impact have small groups of accountability, commitment, and support. Places where you are held in love strong enough that you are willing to change, that you're willing to try something different, that you're willing to hear someone who says, Casper, dude, you're being really annoying, right? Like, usually I just dismiss that, but because I know and love this person who's telling me, I'm like, wow, I really need to listen to this. I need to take this feedback seriously. So it's like a cauldron of courage, right? Like, you are forged in

flames when you're in a small group like this. And especially if you have shared experiences. So whether that's, you know, it could be in a book club, right? Like you're reading a same book, you're talking about it. It might be you go on a trip together. It might be that you're talking about finances together. It might be, there's a hundred different, you could be talking about baseball, like, or marriage, right? Like, I don't care what the, what the invitation to the conversation is, but it's about the honesty and the integrity and the commitment to each other. That's what shapes us. And you see this, you know, in religious traditions as well, in the Jewish context, there's the Musa movement, which were essentially conversations around 13 different values that people would

practice. So you have an individual practice and then you have a practice at that small group level. And the early Methodists were so intense about small groups that you couldn't come to Sunday worship if you hadn't attended a midweek small group. You literally got given a ticket in the small group that then allowed you access to the Sunday service. So Wesley, John Wesley, who's the kind of founder of Methodism, was like all in on this because he knew that if you wanted to visit people in prison, And if you wanted to feed the poor, if you wanted to, you know, grow your capacity of goodness in the world, that you needed people, as he said, to watch over you in love. And I love that phrase because we all need that in order to grow. Why do you think it's or what is it about a community that makes it that's so important for people to be a part of?

I know, I mean, we've, we've probably a lot of people listening and watching have read the studies on. going back to our history where it was in our DNA that we're very tribal people and being a part of the tribe will literally save your life from the Sabretoothed tiger or from from a protection standpoint right like that's that's like in our DNA where the tribes come from as we've gotten older we don't have those same risk we don't have to worry about what's rustling in the bushes that it might eat us literally that that was part of why being in a tribe was important so now that that's no longer a part of this. Why, though, the community and tribal aspect of us is, it seems to be as strong as ever as to why that's important. Can you share some of the science behind that?

Well, I mean, the first thing to say is that it takes a long time for our brains to change. So that instinct that was a strong, you know, thousands of years ago is still as strong today, even though there might not be a tiger in the bushes. So, you know, the science is pretty much stable on that. We haven't evolved enormously in terms of our brains. I think one of the big things that is true is that one of the reasons why we're looking for community in places like, whether it's fitness groups or at the workplace or elsewhere, is that some of the traditional structures of community are declining. So the first thing to think about is the structure of the family, right? The idea of two parents and 2.4 children with a dog in the suburbs is a very modern idea. And it's actually very

counter to our biology. We're used to being in large networks of familial relationships. So the idea, and of course, there still exists in the world, right? If you're in India, you'll hear people talking about auntie and uncle, not people necessarily who are blood-related, but that sense of an expanded family circle, a tribe that you're part of. Now, in the West, in America, especially, we have much more of an individualist culture. And so our family really extends to maybe five, six people that we see a couple times a year, right? And so there's a deep loss in that, I think. As we move around more and more, we also have less of a connection to place, less of a sense of history about where we are. And so, again, we feel like another layer of community is lost around us. And then more recently,

we've seen this drastic decline in religious communities, but also things like the Elks or the Rotary Club or a lot of volunteer communities that we were part of perhaps 100 years ago. So again, that kind of piece of community infrastructure is gone. Now, at the same time, you're seeing the growth of all sorts of other interesting communities. But I think it's part of the reason why we're kind of looking around trying to find places where we feel connected. Because even just on a statistical level, the average number of friends that we've had has reduced, for example, since the 1980s. The number of people that we have over for dinner every year has reduced. So there's just a decrease in the kind of rich relational currency, which we have today.

And we're social creatures, so we need it. Why do you think that's decreased over the years? Well, this is a very fiercely debated sociological point. But there's a couple of things. I think one is, you know, we live in a very kind of consumer capitalist economy in which your productivity is, the thing that is most important. And if you're not productive, you're kind of put in an old people's home or you're put on the shelf, you're kind of shunned away from mainstream society. And to be productive, relationships come second. And so I think there's something just even

at an economic level that we have misdesigned, right? The sense that we are willing to sacrifice relationships in order for profit. Now, that's not to say that we don't want to be thriving and materially in a good place. But it does mean that at a conceptual level, I think we have misprioritized something really, really important. And so that kind of impacts the rest of society. So at one deep level, there's that. There's some more kind of more recent trends around,

I mean, obviously the Internet's had a huge impact in terms of how we spend our time, social media, the use of technology, phones, et cetera. We're much more likely to engage one another. digitally now than we are than we are in person. For some people, that's a lifesaver, right? If you're chronically ill, and now you have a discussion board with other people who share the same condition, my God, that tool is incredible.

But the way most of us use those tools are kind of for like skimming. We stay at a very surface level, whether it's about presenting ourselves in a certain way on Instagram, whether it's the kind of conversations that we have in a Facebook thread with with someone who's politics we don't agree with, right? like it can bring out the worst in us in ways that we would never behave when we were actually at a barbecue or sitting around the dinner table where we have more of a context of someone's life to understand what they're saying. So I think in some ways we're missing the opportunities to go deep in that way. And then finally, you know, that there's a real sense that the communities

that held us before, which kind of goes back to the economics, but a lot of those depended just on volunteer labor. And if you think about women entering the workforce in the 20th century, a lot of that free labor that upheld and sustained communities is lost. And now, you know, to have a functioning community, people need to pay for it in a way that maybe before we just, we understood that everyone donated time or you, you know, it was kind of a principle that everyone understood, right?

The barn-raising kind of culture. And so the individualist culture that we live in, everything has to be financially sustainable as a profit-seeking thing. And I think that's a really dangerous thing because some of the best communities are never going to be profitable. Let's talk about this when it relates to work. So, Casper, think about there's a lot of people listening who are, they're leading a team within a large company.

So we'll have to break it down on two parts because now this whole remote aspect of work has really changed things. So let's make that second. So first of all, let's hold off on that aspect of what we're going to talk about. For what for this particular person that we're thinking of is the person who is leading a team. Right. And, you know, they have these really stretch goals set in front of them by their company. And they're trying to build great culture and great teamwork and one of people helping each other.

It's hard. You'll be a mentor for the new person. You know how it goes. You know how it goes. Right. Let's build the culture. But these are these are types. there's a lot of people out there doing this and it's hard it's hard work i've done it it's tough what

when thinking of your research and your work what advice would you get to that person who's striving to build a team that exceeds expectations of the company they set for so that they can prosper they can do well they can feel like they've done good work uh what advice do you have for them well one of the really interesting trends that we've been tracking in our work is that the especially for younger employees, more and more, they're showing up at the workplace, not just wanting to do a good job, but they're kind of expecting the workplace to be a source of community, to be a source of meaning, a source of purpose in ways that, you know, a couple of generations ago, it would have been absurd to think that you were going to find all of those things at the job that you did, right?

The job was something you did to earn money to sustain a life that where you pursued those things elsewhere. Well, that's really shifted. So the first thing to understand is that when, especially with younger employees, you have to think of yourself, not just as a manager, but a little bit as a therapist, a little bit as like a pastor, right, or a priest or a rabbi, like someone who's helping this person make meaning of their life. Now, the dangerous thing to do is to be like, okay, let me give you the meaning. The better thing to do, and this is again, goes right back to that idea of the small group, is how can I create the conditions in which people have meaning-oriented conversations. So it's about creating the culture exactly, as you said,

that allow people to have conversations that are actually enriching at a deeper level than just like, hey, let's hit these sales targets. Because if you are just going to rely on the extrinsic rewards of, okay, you're going to get a bonus because we hit these targets, you're going to get, it makes for a very thin culture. Because as soon as someone gets a better offer somewhere else, they're gone, right? So you want to build a culture of the kind of intrinsic rewards where people, you know, at a club of people with whom they want to serve a deeper mission, a deeper sense of what they want to create in the world. And a great example of this is actually the military. So if you look at why people end up doing the most brave, courageous things on the front lines

of battle, they're not doing it because they want to defeat this enemy or they're not even doing it for America. They're doing it because they care about the people who are then next to them shoulder to shoulder. It's that siblinghood, that brotherhood, that depth of commitment and love for each other. That's what drives people to do extraordinary things. And as soon as you take those folks and you put them back in our dominant culture, right, when they come back into civilian life, a lot of vets really struggle because the honor culture, the culture of commitment and love that they were in, forged in the most difficult circumstances, now counts for nothing. Right. It's now it's just about what, what can you achieve, what can you show off, what can you, blah, blah, blah, blah.

And they're like, it hurts at like a deep, deep level. And it's one of the reasons I think, you know, we've seen more suicides from veterans than have been killed in the Iraq War, for example, right? It's a real painful culture clash. So to go back to the kind of the office context, you want to build a culture in which people doing it for each other. So can you model conversations that demonstrate that, hey, sometimes you struggle too. and how can we be compassionate and help each other? Can you demonstrate, you know, lifting people up when they do something good, not just, you know, telling them off when they do something bad?

So you look at communities like the November project, a great fitness community across the US where there's, you know, an enthusiasm stick where the person who does the most to support the community is championed and celebrated. So it's about building, yeah, just I think that the conditions for commitment and support. now we find ourselves with i think the working dynamic and setup changed forever with a lot of businesses some will go back to normal i don't think anyone will go back to exactly how it was but and some are changed dramatically where it's like we're going work from home forever um and forever's a

long time so i don't we'll see what happens but but at a minimum there will be more remote work moving forward. More distributed teams moving forward. More base camp like Jason Free, DHS. I don't know if you know those guys, but I've had them on. Like they, or Matt Mullenwig's company at automatic, more teams like the ones those people have built moving, even bigger companies, right, are having more as part of it. And some of it, they see some, some, some, just simple, the dollars and cents. I have lower commercial real estate costs. Right. We're going to do it this way and we can still be productive. So what about for that person? Because I remember when I was New Casper, I was an inside sales rep. I met two guys that were in my wedding. I met my wife. I met multiple lifelong friends in that

building, that first office where I got my first job outside at when I got out of college and got done playing football. And so to me, to think that that wouldn't have happened literally would be devastating to me Because not only did I learn how to sell and learned about the company where I worked, but my social life was what became the people in that place. So to not have that is dramatically different for people moving forward. What do you think as a manager? What are ways you would still try to maintain and build some of this community and team if you are distributed and remote? Totally. I mean, if I have a hire someone who's from the graduating class of 2020, my heart is just going to be like,

hurting for them, man, because it's tough. It is really, really tough. And of course, so many people are losing their jobs right now as well. So it's just, it's just doubly impacted. So here's a, mental model that I found really, really helpful, which is to think of three concentric circles of relationship. So at the very heart of it is up to five people, right? This is our most intimate friendships, our spouse, our kids, our best friends, people we live with. That's, that group of people has reduced over time. But that's the kind of center. Then the middle circle is kind of that famous Dunbar's number of 150, right? This is the community. So people whose name you know, people who you recognize, you might share

space with, you might play volleyball together, whatever it is, right? People you work with. And then the outer ring of relationship is the crowd. So these are people who don't necessarily know, but you might see them now and again in Trader Joe's, or you might recognize them from the neighborhood, whatever it is. So the workplace is more and more a provider of that middle circle of relationship. And what's happening right now during COVID is that our relationships have shrunk and they've gone deep. So we're spending more and more time with the people in that inner circle. Obviously the people we live with, but even right people getting on Zoom with their families every Sunday now. Like when did we when did we do that? But there's a real focus on the people who are most important. So here's something that

as a manager that you can do is to provide a structured, very light touch way in which people can have a sweet, short, kind of serendipitous connection, kind of like the water cooler moment, right? Or you might sit down and have a meal next to someone, or maybe you're going through an HR training with someone and you become buddies. You want to replicate that kind of environment. So maybe it's a trivia game. Maybe it's a costume contest. Maybe it's, right, some invitation towards maybe some silliness, some playfulness. And you give people at first just little half an hour snippets of this. So there's a sense of like, oh, that was fun, right?

Like this felt different from a work meeting. You want to find some way in which there's some humor and some levity. And then over time, you want to invite those people to go deeper together. And this is again where the small group is perfect. So let's say you organize within your company, you know, people can sign up for slots to be assigned with three other people within the company. They might not know them at all. And over the next six weeks, every week they're going to get together for an hour and they're going to discuss a particular question.

And there's a hundred different questions you can ask. You can start kind of light and safe and work your way to a little bit deeper over time. And you will be amazed how intimate a conversation online can feel when people feel safe and they really share what's going on. Honestly, I think it's a really interesting time for a kind of relationship design and community building. Because people are actually often willing to risk more when they're in this. safety of their own home. So we've seen people signing up for all sorts of small group explorations, particularly on the kind of religion, spirituality world, where they would never have done it before because they're like, worst case scenario, I'm just going to shut my screen and leave,

which is very different from like, I'm in a building that I'm unfamiliar with, with people I don't know, and how am I going to get out without it being awkward? So this is actually a great time to try new things. So I'm kind of excited to see what kind of community innovation we're going to see over the next year. What about you? I love your ideas and what you've written about, but how do you actually implement what you study and what you write about into your, because sometimes we struggle with this. I say the royal we as in, I mean, I do, but how do I teach something and then I find myself messing it up in my personal life or my professional life, whatever, the same thing.

And I wonder how do you implement some of what you're learning about the power of rituals and teams and community building in your own life. Ryan, the wound is the gift. The reason why we care about this stuff is because we suck at it so bad. Sometimes I'm like, I just wish everyone would go away and I'll just be on my own. But I mean, honestly, one of the best rituals for me has been creating my own small groups. So the most important small group I've had was we called it a confession group. And I write about this in the book as well.

and talk about how, you know, I was coming to the end of my time in divinity school at Harvard and with four other friends, they didn't really know each other very well, but I knew them pretty well individually. And all of us were often, you know, like leading a team in front of a room, kind of the leader in a group. And, you know, as a leader, you need to be able to model vulnerability a little bit, right? You need to demonstrate that you can go there in a safe way and that other people can then go there too. But it's actually not the place for you to work out your own stuff, right? Like you need to hold the boundary on that. But it does mean that we do all need a place where we can go deep in our own stuff and be messy and unclear and, you know, we need help.

So I was like, okay, I want to form this kind of group for leaders who are often in front of a room. And I want this to be a place where we admit to where we have screwed up. I want this to be a place of confession. And so that means professionally, It means financially. It means romantically. It means in relationship with parents or kids. It means about our health, right? Like this, everything should be on the table.

And of course, you don't start from zero to 100 in one session. But we went for two and a half years until folks moved away and we had to kind of bring it to close. But every month, we would order Thai food. We would get together at one of our houses. Each of us would have 10 minutes to share and then 10 minutes for the group to ask questions. And it was questions that invited, hey, I'm noticing that. this is a theme. You talked about this last week. You talked about this today. Do you see any connection

there? Or what do you think this has to do with the fact that, you know, this experience has happened for you right now? So that kind of reflection questions. And then if it was welcome, some sharing about how our own experience might help someone else. So it was really a very boundary structure that allowed us to feel very safe in sharing our vulnerability. And honestly, I've not been held more accountable than in that group. And with my two co-founders, you know, I have a very similar relationship where we spend time every Monday. I'll be doing this later today,

where we check in about our own lives, and then we've written a covenant together in which we lay out what's important to us as a team, what do we care about, what are the values that we hold. We read it out loud every week, and then we ask ourselves, we spend our 20 minutes reflecting on it, where have we lived up to the covenant?

what can we celebrate? Where will be done well? And where have we fallen short? What have we not held? What have we not done right? And there's things in there like, you know, like right speech. And so sometimes if I want to mouth off about someone, I'll be in Slack just being like, right speech, right speech. And everyone knows that I want to mouth off. But we're all real clear that we've committed not to back chat about people. And so we're helping each other. Right speech like an R-I-G-H-T? Yeah. So that's a Buddhist term. So that sense of having right action and right speech that you that you essentially have like an honorable commitment of how to act and how to speak.

So that's yeah, we've we've inherited that term and kind of integrated that into how we try and work as a team that, you know, if there's ever an issue, we talk to someone directly. We don't we don't talk about them. But I get back. So I love that one. I wanted the one of the phrases I use, especially as a dad, I try to embody this is spread positive gossip. because oh i love that so what it means like for as we share this with uh we started sharing this when our girls are probably i don't know five or six or seven probably too early but anyway it was never too early you're gonna you're gonna run into people who are gonna want to gossip to you about

somebody else and it's negative be known as a person you don't have to like exit or like make it awkward but be known as the person who models the right behavior and with that and that regard, it would be, if you want to talk about someone else, that's okay, because that's like what kids, it's what adults do, but find something positive, but find something positive. So you could say something like, well, you know, Olivia is amazing at basketball or reading that book, whatever. You know what I'm saying? So instead, I actually came up with this because one of my teammates in college is one of the most likable humans on the planet, one of the best guys. I know his name's Austin Everson. It was a backup quarterback of mine. He eventually became the starter. It was really good.

But everyone loved him. And I thought, why do it? Why does everyone love this guy? And I really wanted to deconstruct the process because I love them. Everybody loved them, guys, girls, everybody. Why was it? And I thought, you know why? He is always so positive about other people, whether they're in the room or whether or not. And he never, ever said negative things about other people when they weren't in the room. Now, as a quarterback, sometimes you got to get on your receivers or your teammates if they make a mistake, right? But you're direct with them, but never behind people's back. And I thought, that's why. What a great way to go. And so for you, right speech, I know I took us on the time. I love that. But I love that. I think what's important, Casper, some things that come out when we have these conversations are these

little nuggets that we learn like your covenant and what those are about and write speech, which is, is, I really like that. And it speaks to me. What are, what are a few others that are covenants of yours that are ways that you choose to live. Yeah. I mean, some of the kind of personal practices for me have become really, really important. So one discipline that I'm really passionate about is taking a tech Sabbath.

So on Friday night, I, you know, I'm very connected on email, social media, blah, blah, blah.

Like, I love people. I love being in relationship with people. But this discipline has been a really, really profound way of kind of keeping myself. self-paced, you know, resilient with some rest. So on Friday night, I turn off my laptop, I turn off my phone. I literally hide them.

I have to put them out of sight so that I'm not tempted to pick them up. And then I light a candle. And I sing a little song that I grew up singing in my summer camp. And it honestly feels like I've crossed a little bridge from work time into rest time. And I mean, all of us know about, you know, the value of taking a little break from tech and the need for the need for rest. But the thing that I really took away from the tradition of the Jewish Sabbath from Abraham Joshua Heschel, wonderful theologian, he talks about the Sabbath isn't a time to reset and prepare for the work week. This time of Sabbath is what the work week is for.

So it's like this is the apex of life, right? Like you're supposed to eat delicious food. You're even supposed to make love. That's a Jewish mitzvah. It's a religious law that you're supposed to kind of enjoy the best of what life is about in this time of Sabbath. because it's like a little window into heaven. And so for me, that has just been such a joyful kind of reframe to be like, oh, wow, it's very easy to get focused on work, work, work, work.

But having that different way of thinking and saying, actually, the work week is to give me this time, this 24 hours. And in fact, the Jewish tradition says it's 25 hours because you want to hold on to that sweetness so much. You take an extra hour at the end. You're like, no, I don't want to let it go. And so that, you know, I do that every week. And it's, especially during quarantine, it's been a,

a really important way, not just of kind of resilience and rest, but also to mark the difference between the weekday and the weekend. Because now that, I mean, we've always been in charge to some extent of how much we work. But, you know, I can just keep going until I crash. And so I need, I need that discipline, that ritual of taking the, taking the Sabbath time and giving myself that pacing and that discipline. So Friday night, you begin your 25 hours when you shut the laptop at like five o'clock or so on Friday night. And then you're getting ready for a great meal and a little peek into heaven. Yeah, that's right.

And this is every week. Every week, yeah. Heaven for me looks like reading in bed. So I'll stay in bed most of Saturday morning with my, you know, with whatever book I'm, I'm deep into that week. Really? What is something, what are, this may be weird, but what are like books you read? I think Harry Potter might be one of them, but what are other books you read that are like

have become sacred text to you? You know, I was famous in my family for saying when I was like 12 books are for nerds that I hated reading. And now I'm like obsessed with books. So listen, nothing stays the same. I think the books that I most enjoy are books that help us take ancient wisdom and put them in conversation with our current experience. So some of the writers I love reading John O'Donoghue was a wonderful Irish poet who just had a real sense of humor in his kind of spiritual knowledge. So I love that. I, oh, gosh, what have I been enjoying recently?

I should have a look around. I've been reading lots of kind of creative nonfiction recently, which, so Mary Carr, there's some wonderful stuff. But then also, you know, people like Kevin Kelly who write about the future of technology and just really kind of invite. I like putting things in conversation, people who would never actually meet,

but you get to introduce them to each other in your brain by reading both people at the same time. you know, kind of a theologian and a futurist. What do you end up with that? For me, that's always wonderful. And then, you know, someone like Seth Godin, who we both admire, who just, I don't know, gives me a kind of a kick up the backside and says, you know, go create something, go do it. Don't wait around.

It's never going to be perfect. Yeah. Yeah, I'm with you. I just, I think it's interesting to hear about the, the actions, the process, the texts that are read by people that produce great work. And to hear like that that 25-hour ritual that you've set for yourself. And that leads me back as we close, Casper, to the title of your book, The Power of Ritual, Turning Everyday Activities into Soulful Practices.

Normally you would open the conversation with this question, but I'm going to close with it instead, is we've learned about some of your rituals. We learned about the power of rituals. We've learned about the power of communities, some of the ways to build better communities, some of the high level thoughts, as well as the zoomed-in practical application, which is perfect because that's what I like to get both of those covered when we have conversations. But what was it about the power of rituals that said, you know what? I'm going to dedicate years of my life, and I know this is what it takes to write a I'm going to dedicate years of my life to working on this one singular topic and or question.

And that's when it comes to the power of rituals. What was it about them that said, I'm doing this. This is what I want to do. What we practice is what we become. And so if we, like we're all practicing certain habits, certain routines, certain rituals. And they're shaping us to be something. And either we can just accept what the world gives us or we can say, no, this is. is what's important to me. These are the values that I care about. And I'm going to embody them

in this set of practices and rituals and know that they will shape me. In Divinity School, one of my classmates said, we all worship something. We just don't all know what we're worshipping. And I think in this moment of reckoning around racism, for example, it's a big moment for white people like me to be like, huh, I've kind of been, I've kind of been worshipping a culture of white supremacy, right? Like, I have not challenged this enough. Or we might think, huh, I, I'm too, you know, maybe, maybe I'm too focused on how I, how I present my image to the world. And I'm not cultivating the things that really matter, like love for the people I care about for, for connection with my neighbor, whatever it is. So I think rituals are profoundly powerful structures that not only

shape our own lives, but shape the world around us. And I said with you that I started out as an activist focused on climate change. And one of the reasons I ended up moving from being an activist in the kind of political world to thinking about spirituality and rituals was that I realized that climate as an issue isn't just something that you can solve with policy. We know what the solutions are, they're just not being implemented. It's not even just about politics, right, just winning these elections, getting these people elected. It's about the paradigm of how we imagine the world to be. Do we see ourselves as separate from nature, or do we see ourselves as part of nature? Do we see ourselves as competing against each other? Or do we see ourselves as collaborating

together? And that's what rituals and religious practices and spiritual traditions have always been focused on is helping us to shift our mindset to see the world in a different way, to understand that we are actually all one connected unit, right? And when we look at the world from that paradigm, all sorts of things fall into place that otherwise would seem impossible. And so for me, I love rituals because they open up a whole new world of possibility of how we might live. And I want to live in that kind of world. Well, Casper, thank you so much for investing your time. your energy and your smile. It makes this an enjoyable.

I mean, you know, I've told you, this is my favorite thing to do is just have these deep, long-form conversations with really thoughtful people that forces me to think. And you've certainly done that. I'm very appreciative. And I appreciate you having me on, man.

Absolutely. The work you do, I'm just so, I'm so glad that you're leading us all and you're offering these spaces of reflection and learning and especially love those circles that you're bringing together. Honestly, I think if anything is going to change the world, it's that. Love it. Well, your book's called The Power of Ritual, Turning Everyday Activities into Soulful Practices. It's impactful. I appreciate your team sending me an early copy. Where would you send my listeners and viewers to learn more about you online?

Check out powerof ritual.org if you want to find out more about the book. And my, my day day job is sacred design lab. So if you want to learn more about some of the writing and the research that we've done, you can go to sacred.design. Love it. Well, Casper, I love to continue our dialogue as we both progress. And thanks again for being here. You bet. Thanks so much, right. Thank you. Wow, Casper is a fascinating guy, really smart. I enjoyed that one. A few of the key takeaways. We mistake tradition for convention. Tradition is the beating heart. Convention is the outer expression. We must be willing to change symbols as we grow.

Then the military holds culture and honor in the highest regard, standing shoulder to shoulder, doing it for each other. There's no reason why we can't replicate some of the key learnings from the military with our team. and then write a covenant together. What's important? What are our values? Great exercise to do with both your team and your family.

I want to say thank you once again for continuing to spread the word, one person at a time, telling a friend, you should listen to this episode of The Learning Leaders Show with Casper Ter Kyle if you want to better understand how to build a fantastic culture with your team. And because you continue to do that, you give me the opportunity to do what I love on a daily basis. And for that, I will forever be grateful. Thank you so much. Talk with you soon. Can't wait.