Speaker 1: Hi, friends, what you have here is someone interviewing me.
Speaker 1: It's Pete from the How to Be Awesome at Your
Speaker 1: Job Podcast, and I thought this one came out well.
Speaker 1: And occasionally I'll drop an episode from someone else's podcast
Speaker 1: where they interview me and the feed just to allow
Speaker 1: you to get a little bit more of a sense
Speaker 1: of me when I'm doing more of the talking. So
Speaker 1: hopefully you enjoy this. We'll have another interview out on Tuesday.
Speaker 1: As always, take care and appreciate you listening. Bye. Welcome
Speaker 1: to the How to Be Awesome at Your Job Podcast,
Speaker 1: the show where brilliant professionals share how to sharpen the
Speaker 1: universal skills required to flourish at work, enjoy more career fun, wins, meaning,
Speaker 1: and money with your host see Lakaitis. Hello and thanks
Speaker 1: much for joining us here for episode two with fellow
Speaker 1: podcaster Eric Zimmer. He really brought it when it comes
Speaker 1: to the audio quality and more importantly some oler content.
Speaker 1: So you're gonna learn one pro tips for wisely allocating
Speaker 1: your time and energy among all the roles you play
Speaker 1: to an effective means to sustain your good habits when
Speaker 1: you feel like quitting. And three how being more yourself
Speaker 1: at work can in fact make you more awesome at
Speaker 1: your job. So if you want to check out the
Speaker 1: show notes, or the transcript or the links to items
Speaker 1: mentioned here, you'll find that over at Awesome at your
Speaker 1: Job dot Com slash FP one to two. And while
Speaker 1: you're there at Awesome at your Job dot Com, I
Speaker 1: do recommend you check out some of the cool stuff
Speaker 1: we've got, from the ten Days to Winning at Work
Speaker 1: email course which helps you slash waste, to the Gold
Speaker 1: Nugget email summaries, which share the wisdom of each guest
Speaker 1: in a digestible email you can read and under two
Speaker 1: minutes in the morning. So here's Eric's story. Eric is
Speaker 1: the host of a podcast called The One You Feed.
Speaker 1: It has been named the best of podcast by iTunes
Speaker 1: and has gotten over a million and a half downloads
Speaker 1: to date. He's been helping build startup companies for fifteen years,
Speaker 1: been involved in technology for longer than that. Recently he's
Speaker 1: been doing e commerce consultan for fortunate five companies, and
Speaker 1: he started a solar energy company called Tipping Point. Here's Eric. Eric,
Speaker 1: thanks so much for joining us here on the How
Speaker 1: to Be Awesome at Your Job podcast. Thanks Pete thank
Speaker 1: you for having me on. I appreciate it. Well, I
Speaker 1: think it'd be fun if you maybe kicked us off
Speaker 1: by telling us a bit of the story with your
Speaker 1: partner and crime Chris Forbes on the show The One
Speaker 1: You Feed? How did you get to know each other
Speaker 1: and end up with a hit show? Chris and I've
Speaker 1: known each other a long time now. I hesitate to
Speaker 1: even say how long because that will tell you how
Speaker 1: old I am, but we're upwards of twenty years that
Speaker 1: we've been friends. And so, you know, when I got
Speaker 1: the idea for this show, I don't really know quite
Speaker 1: how it came to me, but I had been interested
Speaker 1: in online marketing because I'd owned a solar energy company
Speaker 1: that I was thinking of trying to totally change what
Speaker 1: we did and do more things online. Blah blah blah. Anyway,
Speaker 1: I just got the idea for the show somewhere just
Speaker 1: kind of hit me, and then from there I called
Speaker 1: Risk and I just said, you know, you're interested in
Speaker 1: doing this, and he was like sure, and we kind
Speaker 1: of started the next day. Chris used to be an
Speaker 1: audio engineer, so he's kind of responsible for how good
Speaker 1: the show sounds, and part of my motivation and wanting
Speaker 1: to do it was I figured we'd spend more time
Speaker 1: together because you know, as you get older, the busier
Speaker 1: life gets, the less time to carve out for friendship
Speaker 1: at least that can happen. And so I was like,
Speaker 1: this is a great way to like do something that
Speaker 1: I want to do that's productive, and you know, you
Speaker 1: spend more time with a friend that I really like
Speaker 1: being with. So it kind of worked out great in
Speaker 1: that way. That's great. And so let's tell us a
Speaker 1: little bit about the title of the show and what
Speaker 1: do you mean by the Good Wolf and the Bad Wolf. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so the show is called The One You Feed and
Speaker 1: it's based on an old parable of unknown origin, although
Speaker 1: most people attributed to the Cherokee Indians, but I don't
Speaker 1: know that that's correct or not. No one really knows. Anyway,
Speaker 1: I'll just read the parable because otherwise I'll end up
Speaker 1: saying it and many more sentences, so you know the
Speaker 1: parable Basically, there's a grandfather who's talking with his grandson.
Speaker 1: He's as in life, there are two wolves inside of
Speaker 1: us that are always a battle. One is a good wolf,
Speaker 1: which represents things like kindness and bravery and love and
Speaker 1: the other is a bad wolf, which represents things like
Speaker 1: greed and hatred and fear. And the grandson stops and
Speaker 1: thinks about it, and he looks up at his grandfather grandfather,
Speaker 1: which one wins, and the grandfather says that the one
Speaker 1: you feed. So that's the kickoff point for the show.
Speaker 1: Is I read people that parable, and I asked him,
Speaker 1: kind of, what does that mean to you? How does
Speaker 1: that apply to the work that you do? How does
Speaker 1: that apply to you in your life? So that's the parable.
Speaker 1: And I liked it because I thought it was a
Speaker 1: nice jumping off point to be able to talk to
Speaker 1: a lot of different people. I have wide ranging interests,
Speaker 1: but be able to at least tie it back to
Speaker 1: a common theme or at least a common jumping off point.
Speaker 1: So that's sort of the parable. And I think you
Speaker 1: then asked me kind of what it means to me? Right? Please?
Speaker 1: Do you know? I think for me, what makes a
Speaker 1: thing a parable is usually you hear it and you
Speaker 1: immediately know what it means, and it conveys a lot
Speaker 1: of information in a very small space. And so I
Speaker 1: think it's kind of obvious on one hand, like, oh, okay,
Speaker 1: well we all have different inclinations inside of us. You know,
Speaker 1: we have good and bad or you could use a
Speaker 1: Buddhist term if you wanted. If you don't like good
Speaker 1: and bad, you could use skillful and unskillful. Right, but
Speaker 1: we have differing urges, and the one that you give
Speaker 1: more attention and energy to is the one that's going
Speaker 1: to come out on top or the one that's going
Speaker 1: to you know, reflect your life better. And so I
Speaker 1: think the Parable talks about just doing that at a
Speaker 1: very simple level, that's what it is. At a slightly
Speaker 1: deeper level, because I've had to read this thing at least,
Speaker 1: you know, a hundred and fifty times, if not more,
Speaker 1: and and talk to people about it. At a deeper level,
Speaker 1: I think it conveys a couple of other things that
Speaker 1: I think are really interested in. One of them is
Speaker 1: that the Grandfather sort of says, you know, we all
Speaker 1: have this inside of us. It's been between you know,
Speaker 1: a good wolf and a bad wolf, and which one wins,
Speaker 1: you know, So it's set up as if it's a
Speaker 1: close battle, right Like this isn't like it's a close battle,
Speaker 1: and you know, the one you feed wins. So I
Speaker 1: like that because I think it normalizes the human condition
Speaker 1: to some degree. Right, we live in a culture that
Speaker 1: is so focused on perfection in so many ways, and
Speaker 1: a culture that says, you know, like if you're not
Speaker 1: in a great mood, there's something wrong with you, or
Speaker 1: you know, there's this pathology towards always being perfect or
Speaker 1: always being happy or always being in a good place,
Speaker 1: and we're not that way as people, and I like
Speaker 1: that the Parable normalizes that and says, what you're going through,
Speaker 1: the struggles you're having are what everybody goes through. That's
Speaker 1: part of being human. So I like that part of it.
Speaker 1: And I also like it doesn't talk about starving or
Speaker 1: caging the bad wolf. Right, those are parts of us
Speaker 1: right that we have, you know, young called at the
Speaker 1: shadow side. I mean, there's different ways to look at it,
Speaker 1: but it doesn't talk about having to do that. It
Speaker 1: just talks about encouraging the good parts of yourself. And
Speaker 1: I've found that to be a much better way to
Speaker 1: make changes in my life, encouraging good things in myself
Speaker 1: versus trying to eradicate or stamp out things I don't
Speaker 1: like about myself. So there you go. Oh that's good,
Speaker 1: thank you. Yes, well it does feel like you've found
Speaker 1: something that is an excellent launching point and interesting and
Speaker 1: has some real depth to it. And so you know,
Speaker 1: I love to hear during the course of your own
Speaker 1: experience and all of your guests, you know, what are
Speaker 1: some of the best practices? Are key ways that you
Speaker 1: can feed your good wolf. I mean, I think that
Speaker 1: there's so many different I guess, you know, subsets or
Speaker 1: factors or components that we could say the good wolf encompasses.
Speaker 1: So if you had to prioritize a bit, I would
Speaker 1: say elements of the good wolf that could help one
Speaker 1: become more awesome at his or her job. I think
Speaker 1: awareness is the number one thing, because if we're not aware,
Speaker 1: we're not even necessarily conscious that we're making choices. You know,
Speaker 1: it's perfectly possible to live a human life what I
Speaker 1: would call autopilot, where we just kind of follow what
Speaker 1: gets put in front of us. Yes, and we follow
Speaker 1: our moods. You know, I'm in this kind of mood,
Speaker 1: so I do X. And when I'm in why kind
Speaker 1: of mood, I do WHY. So it's perfectly you can
Speaker 1: do that. I think it's awareness that allows us to
Speaker 1: switch from that to looking and being conscious of the
Speaker 1: choices we make, whether they be about how we behave
Speaker 1: towards other people, whether they be about how we talk
Speaker 1: to ourselves, whether they be about how much effort we
Speaker 1: put into our job, what things we should give effort to.
Speaker 1: All that takes awareness of what we're doing, and so
Speaker 1: I think that's kind of the key unlock there for
Speaker 1: everything else that follows, is to become more aware of
Speaker 1: where we are, what we're doing, and what are the
Speaker 1: stories that are going on in our heads. Eric, I
Speaker 1: love what you're saying so much here, and I'm thinking
Speaker 1: right now, I've been reading Dr Robert Sheldon E's most
Speaker 1: recent book, Pre Suasion, which is excellent, and he talks
Speaker 1: about sort of the media that they're not so great
Speaker 1: at telling us what to think, but they are great
Speaker 1: at telling us what to think about. And it so
Speaker 1: happens in just the case of our sort of human
Speaker 1: psychological brain workings, that what we pay our attention to,
Speaker 1: we tend to naturally just sort of infer that that
Speaker 1: thing matters, that it's important, that it sort of grows,
Speaker 1: and there's an upward sort of cycle that's occurring there,
Speaker 1: which is why I love the wolf metaphor even more
Speaker 1: as I think more about it right now is that
Speaker 1: it's you're feeding it and it's growing. And so if
Speaker 1: you put your attention on something, you think that thing
Speaker 1: is important, and you tend to put more attention on it.
Speaker 1: And I've gotten caught up in you know, what's the
Speaker 1: humidity level in my humid or this little box. But
Speaker 1: I smoke like two cigars a year. Yeah, it so
Speaker 1: doesn't matter. But you know it's kind of interesting and engaging,
Speaker 1: and I'm getting close and I'm dialing it in and
Speaker 1: that I'm reading things. It's like time out, like this
Speaker 1: is unworthy of my limited attention. Yeah, I mean I
Speaker 1: think I agree. I read part of that book too,
Speaker 1: and I was struck by that part also about how
Speaker 1: you know, the media focuses on, you know, what we
Speaker 1: give attention to. We can think about that thing how
Speaker 1: we want, but it really frames the debate. And so
Speaker 1: I thought that was fascinating and I think it's great
Speaker 1: the way you're applying it to what we're talking about.
Speaker 1: I think that, Yeah, awareness of how we're spending our
Speaker 1: time is important. I think that we also have to
Speaker 1: be careful, and I will fall into this trap of
Speaker 1: like every single minute has to be spent in the
Speaker 1: ultimately productive way, and that is another trap. And so
Speaker 1: I think there's some degree of how do I allow
Speaker 1: some being, you know, to do what I want to do,
Speaker 1: what interests me in the moment. Sometimes I think is
Speaker 1: a good idea. So you may be interested in your
Speaker 1: humid or and maybe spending a little time on that
Speaker 1: is okay. What I'm really after and what I work
Speaker 1: with a lot of my coaching clients on is you
Speaker 1: can spend your time any way you want. There is
Speaker 1: no right or wrong answer to this. Just be conscious
Speaker 1: of it, be conscious of what you're choosing to do
Speaker 1: with it, because most of us aren't, and the time
Speaker 1: just flies by and the next thing we know, you know,
Speaker 1: to three weeks have gone by and we're like, what
Speaker 1: have I done while I watched a lot of Netflix?
Speaker 1: And I watch and again that might be fine, right,
Speaker 1: that might be okay. It's just about being conscious of it.
Speaker 1: And I can almost feel it in myself now when
Speaker 1: I'm more conscious of how I'm spending my time, and
Speaker 1: other times where I feel like I'm just kind of
Speaker 1: more like under It feels like I'm underwater in some way,
Speaker 1: like I'm not really seeing the bigger picture, or I'm
Speaker 1: not thinking clearly about what I'm doing and I just
Speaker 1: kind of go through things. So I really think it's
Speaker 1: the awareness of it and then making choices realizing because
Speaker 1: a lot of times the bad wolf, at least in
Speaker 1: my experience, is simply just not making a good choice,
Speaker 1: just following the default pattern that comes up. Because you know,
Speaker 1: to your point earlier about what we think is in
Speaker 1: Whorton is what's presented to us. You know, I watch
Speaker 1: very very little TV. I'll watch Netflix or I'll watch movies,
Speaker 1: but I watch very very little TV. And the reason
Speaker 1: I do is a I have way too much to
Speaker 1: do to spend much time on it. But be I'm
Speaker 1: very susceptible to the commercials right now. I don't rush
Speaker 1: out and buy the thing, you right, It's not like
Speaker 1: I see that stuff, but I just keep getting presented.
Speaker 1: The message that I get from commercials over and over
Speaker 1: is how I look makes a tremendous amount of difference
Speaker 1: to everything, and how much money I make also makes
Speaker 1: a tremendous amount of difference, and I don't have enough
Speaker 1: of either. That's kind of the message that I get
Speaker 1: when I unconsciously consume a lot of advertising, which is
Speaker 1: exactly the message they want me to get, by the way,
Speaker 1: and so I stay away from it because I recognize
Speaker 1: how susceptible I am to it. Back to the media,
Speaker 1: you know, the media tells you what to focus on.
Speaker 1: That's where my focus goes. And I suddenly least start
Speaker 1: believing that everything on the outside is what's important, and
Speaker 1: not necessarily the good things on the outside, like my
Speaker 1: relationship with my mom or my relationship with my friends,
Speaker 1: but the things on the outside, like my clothes or
Speaker 1: you know, how clear is my skin or what car
Speaker 1: am I driving? Or how many great vacations am I taking?
Speaker 1: And that's when I personally, again, nothing wrong with any
Speaker 1: of those things, but for me, they get me in
Speaker 1: trouble because at least the way I'm wired internally, there's
Speaker 1: not a lot of substance there. Those things don't really
Speaker 1: make me happy. They are a substitute for what's really important.
Speaker 1: But I can chase them for a long time if
Speaker 1: I'm not careful. You know that. I think it's powerful
Speaker 1: language when you talk about substitutes, and whether that's you know,
Speaker 1: fast food or pornography or whatever, it's like they tend
Speaker 1: to leave folks unsatisfied, you know, like the quality real stuff,
Speaker 1: and so it's potent. So you know, i'd love to
Speaker 1: talk a smidge more about when you mentioned following the
Speaker 1: default pattern. I've read this fascinating study about some is
Speaker 1: really per Rold judges and how it turned out that
Speaker 1: their decisions to sort of grant release of prisoners was
Speaker 1: very predictably related to sort of what time of day
Speaker 1: was it like towards the beginning of just after having
Speaker 1: rejuvenated with a break, or towards the end. So the
Speaker 1: default judgment for Pearl judges, you stay in prison, and
Speaker 1: more and more of those decisions get made when the
Speaker 1: judges just tired, like yeah, I don't know, we're not
Speaker 1: going to risk it. That So why I always bring
Speaker 1: a Snickers bar when I'm on trial. Give it to
Speaker 1: the judge. Here you go, buddy, you know you're feeling
Speaker 1: little low. Oh that is perfect, you know, hungry. Well
Speaker 1: it could resultantly freedom or that's exactly it. Yeah, I'm
Speaker 1: not trying to bribe him. I'm just trying to get
Speaker 1: trying to get his mood up to a level where
Speaker 1: you can think, oh that's so money. Well, so now
Speaker 1: i'd love to be here then sort so, what are
Speaker 1: some of your practices or maybe things you've learned from
Speaker 1: your guests associated with being prudent to make sure your
Speaker 1: attention doesn't get hijacked, to make sure that you don't
Speaker 1: end up making the low energy default decisions, but rather
Speaker 1: the optimal decisions. Yeah, I think there's a variety of
Speaker 1: things that go into it. Again, to be repetitive, it's
Speaker 1: about awareness and so for me, I train awareness by meditating.
Speaker 1: That seems to be the thing that helps me to
Speaker 1: be more aware, and then just practicing being aware when
Speaker 1: I'm out and around. You know, I have a little
Speaker 1: thing where I try as often as I can, and
Speaker 1: I don't do it that often, but to stop and
Speaker 1: sort of just ask myself like where am I, what
Speaker 1: am I doing? And why am I doing? And is
Speaker 1: it what I want to be doing? Just you know,
Speaker 1: pausing and asking those kind of questions has a lot.
Speaker 1: I mean, I think planning out a schedule is very
Speaker 1: very useful. I think spending time to reflect on what's
Speaker 1: important to you and what your goals are is important.
Speaker 1: And there's so many different ways that you can do
Speaker 1: that are really simple. Exercise that I love that I
Speaker 1: don't know where I got it from. Probably seven habits
Speaker 1: of highly effective people, which is a masterpiece. One way
Speaker 1: you can do this is to start your week by
Speaker 1: looking at all the roles that you play in your life.
Speaker 1: So in my case, I am a father, I'm a son,
Speaker 1: I'm a brother, I'm a podcast host, I'm a consultant,
Speaker 1: I'm a dog owner. I mean, just so on and
Speaker 1: so forth, right, And if I do that, then I
Speaker 1: can look at each of those things and try and
Speaker 1: plug in how I do something for those roles each week. Now,
Speaker 1: they're not going to be equal. The amount of time
Speaker 1: that I spend on certain of my roles, like being
Speaker 1: a brother is not nearly the time that I put
Speaker 1: into being a father, as an example. But if my
Speaker 1: relationship with my brother is important, then as part of
Speaker 1: my conscious planning, I'm looking at that and going, Okay, well,
Speaker 1: I want to make sure I get some time in
Speaker 1: there for him, and if this is important, I want
Speaker 1: to make sure I'm getting some time. So that's a
Speaker 1: very easy way to make sure that we're spending the
Speaker 1: time on the things that matter by being very thoughtful
Speaker 1: about the roles we play in life and what we
Speaker 1: want to do with them. So I found that to
Speaker 1: be a very simple, very helpful practice that doesn't involve
Speaker 1: sitting down and writing long mission statements and clarifying your
Speaker 1: values and lots of other things that can be good
Speaker 1: and can also just be a rat hole. I find
Speaker 1: that one to be imminently practical as a way to
Speaker 1: you know, direct my attention in the right way. That
Speaker 1: is powerful, thank you. And it's interesting I find that
Speaker 1: lately as I've been doing things and after some of
Speaker 1: those questions have followed up in terms of you know,
Speaker 1: what am I doing? Why is this optimal? Is this
Speaker 1: pointing me to the path that I want to be?
Speaker 1: And I find that most often my answer is I
Speaker 1: can't think about this right now. I just gotta get
Speaker 1: this done. Yep, yep. Well, you know, I really do
Speaker 1: highly recommend Seven Habits of Highly Effective People because it
Speaker 1: really put a couple of things in my mind early
Speaker 1: on when I was young that I think helped me
Speaker 1: with my whole career. There's just some key concepts in
Speaker 1: that book. But another one of them that I'm pretty
Speaker 1: sure this is where I first heard it, and it's
Speaker 1: such a true statement and it makes so much sense,
Speaker 1: and it's about managing time. And the story is, you know,
Speaker 1: you've got a professor sitting up in front of a
Speaker 1: class and he's got a big glass bowl, right, you've
Speaker 1: probably heard this one, and he puts a bunch of
Speaker 1: big rocks in, and you know, until he can't get
Speaker 1: any more of the big rocks in, and he asks,
Speaker 1: is this full? And everybody goes, yeah, it's pretty full, right,
Speaker 1: But of course it's not, because then he dumps in
Speaker 1: a bunch of smaller rocks. You know, he puts all
Speaker 1: the small rocks and he can and he go, is
Speaker 1: that full? Well, it looks like it, but no. Then
Speaker 1: he starts pouring all the sand in, and then finally
Speaker 1: he pours water in, right, so you can get a
Speaker 1: lot in there. The moral of that story, or the
Speaker 1: learning of that story, is that if if you put
Speaker 1: the big rocks in first, everything else will find a
Speaker 1: way to get in there and get done, the big
Speaker 1: rocks being the things that are important to you. But
Speaker 1: if the other hand, you go the other direction and
Speaker 1: you start and you fill that up with water, which
Speaker 1: is the unimportant stuff, you cannot get big rocks into
Speaker 1: that thing. And so that's really about time. And I
Speaker 1: think what you just said points to some of what
Speaker 1: we get into, which is that whatever shows up in
Speaker 1: front of us is what gets our time and gets
Speaker 1: our energy and gets our attention. And by doing that,
Speaker 1: we're giving all our time to things that are, you know,
Speaker 1: maybe not that important, but appear urgent. And they appear
Speaker 1: urgent because they showed up. It doesn't mean they are,
Speaker 1: but they appear that way, versus spending a lot more
Speaker 1: time thinking about the big rocks, getting those in and
Speaker 1: then allow the other time to filter around those. And
Speaker 1: I found that's an incredibly helpful way to live a
Speaker 1: life that you're accomplishing the things that are important to
Speaker 1: you is to get what's important to you scheduled, know
Speaker 1: when you're gonna do it, have it all in there,
Speaker 1: and then let life mix around that versus the other
Speaker 1: way around. Oh absolutely, that's so on the mark and
Speaker 1: the lesson. The moral of that is not you can
Speaker 1: always cram something else in there, right right, exactly exactly,
Speaker 1: it's not, but it does say that if you you know, yeah,
Speaker 1: I think it's a parable. People get it right. Make
Speaker 1: sure you put things that are important. Do you use
Speaker 1: schedule time form, otherwise they're not going to get done understood,
Speaker 1: and so you know, I'd like to hear a little
Speaker 1: bit in terms of with all the guests you've chatted
Speaker 1: with and their means of feeding the good Wolf. I
Speaker 1: guess I've just been on a kick lately thinking about
Speaker 1: b J Fogg's tiny habits and just an amazing ted
Speaker 1: talk and sort of when it comes to you know,
Speaker 1: things you've discovered from folks and the means by which
Speaker 1: they're feeding the good wolf. What are a number of
Speaker 1: sort of your favorite tidbits, maybe tiny habitable kind of
Speaker 1: activities that have really struck a chord with you and
Speaker 1: seemed to have your guests say this is one of
Speaker 1: the best things I've ever done for myself. Well, I
Speaker 1: think b J Fogg. We had b J Fogg on
Speaker 1: the show, and I agree very much. I mean, I
Speaker 1: think that guy has refined and shaped how I look
Speaker 1: at changing behavior a great deal. So I think that
Speaker 1: very idea. But you know, it was interesting. It was
Speaker 1: our I don't know which it was one of our
Speaker 1: first few interviews. We had a guy named Dan Milman
Speaker 1: on who wrote Way of the Peaceful Warrior, and he
Speaker 1: said it right then, you know, like start small and
Speaker 1: connect the dots and that's b J. Fogg with tiny habits, right,
Speaker 1: start a habit so small that you can accomplish it
Speaker 1: and build from there. And so that's a theme that's
Speaker 1: been running through the show so far. A guy named
Speaker 1: James Clear writes about habits on the web and he
Speaker 1: has a phrase that I used to say. It is
Speaker 1: a little bit of something is better than a lot
Speaker 1: of nothing, which meant do something. If I've got a
Speaker 1: habit that I'm trying to run every day and I
Speaker 1: can't run well, at least walk around the block. James
Speaker 1: says it much more eloquently, which is reduced the scope,
Speaker 1: stick to the schedule. And so for me, that's a
Speaker 1: huge one in staying on track with the behaviors that
Speaker 1: I want. Is okay, I wanted it was gonna go
Speaker 1: to the gym for an hour, and I've got It's
Speaker 1: not gonna work. I got out of work late. I
Speaker 1: got ten minutes. Most of us just say effort right,
Speaker 1: forget it. But we can do something with that ten minutes.
Speaker 1: For our physical health, we can, like I said, walk
Speaker 1: around the block a few times. We can do fifty
Speaker 1: push ups or a hundred push ups. And that is
Speaker 1: so important, not because walking around the block or doing
Speaker 1: the fifty push ups makes a huge deal of difference
Speaker 1: in our physical health over a long period of time.
Speaker 1: It's negligible, right, but we're keeping the habit going. One
Speaker 1: of the things b J. Fogg talks about, and I
Speaker 1: use this all the time with people that I coaches.
Speaker 1: He makes the analogy of a plant and a habit
Speaker 1: is like a plant. And there are times that you're
Speaker 1: given that plant lots of attention, you know, so if
Speaker 1: it's working out, you know, you're working out and your
Speaker 1: tracking your workouts and you're getting all your protein and
Speaker 1: you're just crushing it right. And then there are other
Speaker 1: times where the goal is just not to kill the plant, right.
Speaker 1: It's you go on vacation. That's a time for a
Speaker 1: lot of people where the habit or the plant gets killed. Right.
Speaker 1: You go on vacation, you stop doing what you're doing,
Speaker 1: and when you come home, you've lost all your momentum
Speaker 1: and you're done. Or something happens in your life. Your
Speaker 1: kids get really sick, you get really sick, you have
Speaker 1: to go to the hospital with your mom for three days.
Speaker 1: Those are the sort of things that during those times
Speaker 1: you can't devote the time to your habits that you
Speaker 1: want or I guess you can, but it's probably a
Speaker 1: fairly selfish thing to do, right, so you can do it.
Speaker 1: But what you can do is find what is the
Speaker 1: little thing I can do to keep this habit going.
Speaker 1: So I've got to be here at the hospital with
Speaker 1: mom for the next three days. I'm not going to
Speaker 1: leave her and go to the gym, but you know what,
Speaker 1: I Am going to walk up and down the hall
Speaker 1: and the stairs twenty times. You know, I'm gonna give
Speaker 1: something to this habit to keep it alive until I'm
Speaker 1: back in a position where I can really nourish it
Speaker 1: and grow it again. And I think that's another version
Speaker 1: on you know, James Clear's stick to the scope or
Speaker 1: do the schedule, or as I say, a little bit
Speaker 1: of something is better than a lot of nothing. That's
Speaker 1: how you keep habits alive. It is those places that
Speaker 1: most of us come on glued when it comes to habits.
Speaker 1: Most of us are able to start a habit and
Speaker 1: do okay with it for a while, but inevitably life
Speaker 1: starts getting in the way, and instead of adjusting the
Speaker 1: habit so it fits within what life is and is
Speaker 1: not ideal but keeps us going. We usually just give
Speaker 1: up then we take another or those moments where you go,
Speaker 1: I can never stick with anything, or I'm the kind
Speaker 1: of person who always quits, or you know, we start
Speaker 1: to have these thoughts about ourselves that really aren't true.
Speaker 1: We just don't know that necessarily how to navigate the
Speaker 1: challenges that come along. Oh, thank you, that's so good. Well,
Speaker 1: you've already sort of teed up the next question I'd
Speaker 1: like to hear, And that is so with my guests.
Speaker 1: Often they'll say things that just really have stuck with
Speaker 1: me and transformed the way I think and behave in
Speaker 1: a asting way. So I'd love it if you could
Speaker 1: reflect back on a hundred sixty guests, if a couple
Speaker 1: big ideas leap to mind that you haven't already mentioned,
Speaker 1: that could really be transformational for those are looking to
Speaker 1: be more awesome at their jobs. That's a great question.
Speaker 1: And yeah, I'll use one that I think can make
Speaker 1: people better at your job. So we had a guest
Speaker 1: on her name's Glennon Doyle Melton. She's been getting a
Speaker 1: lot of attention lately for a new book she wrote.
Speaker 1: You know, she's been on Oprah, and different things, but
Speaker 1: we had her on before all that occurred, although she
Speaker 1: was pretty popular at that point too. But she said
Speaker 1: something that kind of blew me away. And she has
Speaker 1: a tendency to way overshare, right, like hilarious examples of this,
Speaker 1: right and that you know, when she goes to a
Speaker 1: cocktail party with her husband, she'll see him across the
Speaker 1: room given her the like cut sign across her neck,
Speaker 1: like nope, too much, right, So that's the tendency she
Speaker 1: goes to. But what she said was and this just
Speaker 1: kind of stopped me in my tracks when she said it.
Speaker 1: And she said that if you stick to surface things
Speaker 1: when you're talking to people, you're gonna have a harder
Speaker 1: time connecting to people because there's so many different surfaces
Speaker 1: out there. But if you take the time to go
Speaker 1: deeper with people, if you take the risk to go
Speaker 1: deeper with people, you connect with many more people because
Speaker 1: you go a few layers down. We're all the same.
Speaker 1: And that just kind of blew me away. And the
Speaker 1: way that is applied to me in my work because
Speaker 1: owned a solar company, I've been in lots of startups.
Speaker 1: I do consulting for large retailers. The way that's played
Speaker 1: out in my own life is that when I was younger,
Speaker 1: I tried to bring the version of myself that I
Speaker 1: thought fit best there. Now I wasn't being someone I wasn't,
Speaker 1: but I was being a very reduced version of who
Speaker 1: I was. This is the part that I think is
Speaker 1: acceptable to show in this situation. And you know, I'm
Speaker 1: not suggesting that we abandon that completely and start showing
Speaker 1: up to meetings and tank tops and you know, with
Speaker 1: our doll dog. Although I used to bring my dog
Speaker 1: to work a lot. It was a great job. But
Speaker 1: what I realized is I got a little bit older,
Speaker 1: and I got a little bit more comfortable with who
Speaker 1: I was when I started letting the parts of me show.
Speaker 1: It's a big word these days, right, vulnerability. But when
Speaker 1: I started being more myself at work and taking a
Speaker 1: few chances to sort of not say what everybody else
Speaker 1: is saying, or to show that I think differently about
Speaker 1: certain things, what I found is I got way better
Speaker 1: at my job. And the reason was so much of
Speaker 1: being successful in a professional careers about the relationships you
Speaker 1: have with other people. How well do you work with
Speaker 1: other people? How persuasive can you be? You know, all
Speaker 1: that stuff. Connection is what builds that. And what I
Speaker 1: realized was that when I was bringing only a little
Speaker 1: bit of myself, I could only make a little bit
Speaker 1: of a connection. But when I started bringing again, don't
Speaker 1: go to the extreme with this, but when I started
Speaker 1: bringing who I really was and taking chances at showing
Speaker 1: that to people, the connections epen because there was more
Speaker 1: of me there to connect. And is those connections get better,
Speaker 1: I get better at the work I do because the
Speaker 1: work that I do with folks is largely you know,
Speaker 1: it's not about can I write good code? It's about
Speaker 1: can I get groups of people working together very well
Speaker 1: to accomplish things, and can we figure out what's most
Speaker 1: important and can we communicate? And that helps in that
Speaker 1: way a ton, Oh absolutely, And just that notion that
Speaker 1: now they like you and they are more engaged, you know,
Speaker 1: they don't want to disappoint this person who's like a friend,
Speaker 1: and then they trust you, so they're more able to
Speaker 1: speak their mind and say, hey, I have these concerns,
Speaker 1: and so you're less likely to have some blow ups
Speaker 1: down the road because they were holding on to you know,
Speaker 1: spooky indicator early but didn't say anything. So that's so good.
Speaker 1: Thank you. Yeah, well, you tell me, Eric, is there
Speaker 1: anything else you really want to make sure that you
Speaker 1: put out there before we shift gears and talk about
Speaker 1: a few of your favorite things here? I don't think so.
Speaker 1: You'll probably link to us in the show notes. You know,
Speaker 1: I'm proud of the show that we do. You know,
Speaker 1: at one two thousand and fourteen Best of iTunes award.
Speaker 1: You know, we've been listening to over five million times,
Speaker 1: so I'm really proud of the show. So I love
Speaker 1: people to just check that out and then from there
Speaker 1: if you know the stuff we're talking about resonates. I
Speaker 1: do offer coaching programs and we have a Facebook group
Speaker 1: and La la la, but the show is really for me.
Speaker 1: It's the thing I'm most proud of. Oh that's fantastic.
Speaker 1: We'll definitely linked to all that good stuff. So did
Speaker 1: you start us off by sharing a favorite quote something
Speaker 1: you find inspiring? Yeah. I probably won't get it right,
Speaker 1: but it's start where you are, do what you can
Speaker 1: use what you have. I think it's by Arthur Ashe
Speaker 1: although with quotes you can see them attributed to lots
Speaker 1: of different people and I may have the order wrong there,
Speaker 1: but that's the essence of it. Start where you are,
Speaker 1: do what you can, use what you have. And I
Speaker 1: love it just because it says, wherever you are, you
Speaker 1: can start right now on making progress towards the thing
Speaker 1: that you have, and you have enough to start. You
Speaker 1: may not have everything you think you need to get
Speaker 1: to the finish line, but you have enough to start,
Speaker 1: and so do it. Thank you. And how about a
Speaker 1: favorite study or experiment or a piece of research. Boy,
Speaker 1: that's a good one. I do like the one you
Speaker 1: quoted about the judges. The one I heard most recently
Speaker 1: that fascinated me. And it's one of those that I go, well,
Speaker 1: is that true? But I'll share it anyway because it
Speaker 1: appears to be pure, verified work. It talks about the
Speaker 1: power of our mind to affect what happens. And it's
Speaker 1: a study that followed a group of hotel maids. And
Speaker 1: so they divided him into two groups, and they said
Speaker 1: to one of the groups, hey, the work that you
Speaker 1: do every day is really good for you. You know,
Speaker 1: you're doing exercise, you're in good physical shape, you're exercising
Speaker 1: all that, right, And then they just said nothing to
Speaker 1: the other group. Right. Well, the group that was told
Speaker 1: that they were getting benefit out of their exercise that
Speaker 1: they were doing. When they followed up later found sure enough,
Speaker 1: those people were getting more physical benefit out of it,
Speaker 1: their blood pressure was better, the various indicators of health,
Speaker 1: we're all better. And so that's kind of a fascinating study.
Speaker 1: It points to one of two things, and it's probably
Speaker 1: a combination. One is our brain's ability to sort of
Speaker 1: do things beyond what we think it can do. I
Speaker 1: had a guest on last week we talked about the
Speaker 1: placebo effect, and it's insane. It's insane what our brains
Speaker 1: can do. Or those people just suddenly started going, well, boy,
Speaker 1: if this is exercise, maybe I take another step here
Speaker 1: or another step there. But I love it because it
Speaker 1: shows without changing much of anything except the way they
Speaker 1: viewed what they were doing, they started getting different results.
Speaker 1: And I'm a big believer in you do need to
Speaker 1: change your behavior and your action, right, But I'm an
Speaker 1: also big believer that how you think about what you're
Speaker 1: doing matters too. Oh it's so good, thank you. And
Speaker 1: how about a favorite book. Well, we talked about seven
Speaker 1: habits for highly effective people, So let's run with it.
Speaker 1: Stephen Covey Seven Habits of highly effective people. I've got
Speaker 1: like three or four top books, depending on when you
Speaker 1: ask me, is the one you'll get, But that's the
Speaker 1: one for today. I'll take it and how a favorite tool,
Speaker 1: whether it's a product or service or app something that
Speaker 1: helps you be awesome at your job. I love every note.
Speaker 1: Every note was a big deal for me because I
Speaker 1: am absent minded on a level that is difficult for
Speaker 1: me even to conceive. It's you know, I think we
Speaker 1: all have strengths and weakness is mine as I am
Speaker 1: absent minded. I mean, I'm the kind of person that
Speaker 1: will walk away and leave my phone sitting where somewhere,
Speaker 1: you know, three or four days a week. I mean,
Speaker 1: it's just terrible. But ever note for me, once I've
Speaker 1: finally made the decision that you know what everything is
Speaker 1: going in here. Once I did that, my life got
Speaker 1: so much better in so many ways because everything that
Speaker 1: I need, whether it's for home or the show, or
Speaker 1: the consulting work that I do, or whatever other weird
Speaker 1: thing I'm interested in, all goes in there, and then
Speaker 1: it's all available to me whenever I need it. If
Speaker 1: I've got my phone, it's got every note on it.
Speaker 1: My computer has got ever note on it. If I'm
Speaker 1: at your house, I can get on the web. It
Speaker 1: has helped me so much to be able to find
Speaker 1: and get to things that are important to me, whether
Speaker 1: it be I put down the parking place I am
Speaker 1: where I parked at the airport, or whether it's the
Speaker 1: fact that all the questions I've asked every guest are
Speaker 1: all in Evernote and I can go back and look
Speaker 1: at that stuff, or all the notes I've taken from
Speaker 1: all the books I've done with guests are all in
Speaker 1: ever note. You know, so from the simple to the
Speaker 1: really important, it helps me. That's good, thank you. And
Speaker 1: how about a favorite sort of resonant nuggets, something that
Speaker 1: you share, an eric original that really seems to get
Speaker 1: folks not in their heads retweeting and connecting with folk.
Speaker 1: That's a good one. I know there are those, so
Speaker 1: I'll go with one that's a little bit off topic,
Speaker 1: but it's the one that I think I have talked
Speaker 1: about lately with certain people and really seems to resonate,
Speaker 1: which is the depression hates a moving target, and so
Speaker 1: you know, I wrestle with depression. I think a lot
Speaker 1: of people that I know, you know, entrepreneurs tend to
Speaker 1: be a group of people that wrestle with depression. But
Speaker 1: it doesn't even have to be severe depression. But I've
Speaker 1: just found that when I've got a low mood that
Speaker 1: if I can get moving, that helps so much. Versus
Speaker 1: being stuck in my rain wherever I am, an environmental
Speaker 1: change often can unstick my brain. So even getting from
Speaker 1: inside my house to out walking can often cause that
Speaker 1: uptick where I go from being sort of stuck to
Speaker 1: feeling better. Oh, thank you. What would you say is
Speaker 1: the best place for folks to reach out or learn
Speaker 1: more about you? One? You feed dot net? So it's
Speaker 1: all spelled out. Oh an e y o u fe
Speaker 1: ed dot net. From there, you know, everything else is
Speaker 1: there shows, Facebook, Twitter, etcetera. So that's the place to go,
Speaker 1: all right, And you have a final parting word challenge
Speaker 1: or called action for those seeking to be more awesome
Speaker 1: at their jobs, I think, yeah, you know, one of
Speaker 1: the things that I think I have gotten into in
Speaker 1: the past is looking at We were talking just a
Speaker 1: minute ago about how the way you look at something
Speaker 1: really matters. It's very easy if you have a job
Speaker 1: as an example, to get into uh, I have to
Speaker 1: I have to. I have to. I have to go
Speaker 1: to work. I have to go to work. I have
Speaker 1: to do this, I have to do that. And the
Speaker 1: truth is, no, you really don't. I have to go
Speaker 1: to work because I've got kids to support. Well, you
Speaker 1: don't really have to support. I mean, you could get
Speaker 1: on a train tomorrow and go to California. You might
Speaker 1: get some child support bills. But you know, we can
Speaker 1: choose to do anything we want. Now. The consequences of
Speaker 1: those choices most of us don't really like. But it
Speaker 1: helps me enormously when I realized that, like, I don't
Speaker 1: have to go to work and earn this money so
Speaker 1: that I can pay for X, Y and Z for
Speaker 1: my son. I choose to do it because it's important
Speaker 1: to me. And so that really helps me with you know,
Speaker 1: because I've got the show that I do, I've got
Speaker 1: the coach and I do that I deeply love. And
Speaker 1: then I do some other consulting work, which is really
Speaker 1: great work. I mean, don't get me wrong, It's not
Speaker 1: my passion though, and if I'm not careful, I can
Speaker 1: get stuck into resenting that work and feel like I
Speaker 1: have to. I have to. I have to. And the
Speaker 1: truth is I don't have to. I'm choosing to because
Speaker 1: what it gives me, And so any time I can
Speaker 1: make that switch in my mind, it helps me so
Speaker 1: much get out of this stuck victim mode mentality and
Speaker 1: realize that I really am, to a great degree sort
Speaker 1: of the author of my own life. Beautiful closing thought, Eric,
Speaker 1: this has been such a pleasure. I wish you tons
Speaker 1: of luck and keep on feeding the good wolf. Yeah,
Speaker 1: thank you, Pete. I really enjoyed the conversation too. You
Speaker 1: do a great job. All right. Well, I hope you're
Speaker 1: feeding the good wolf and putting the big rocks in
Speaker 1: place and following other wise metaphors along the way. And
Speaker 1: once again, if you want to check out the show
Speaker 1: notes or the transcripts or the links to Adams mentioned,
Speaker 1: you'll find that over at Awesome at your Job dot
Speaker 1: com slash FP one to two, and I do recommend
Speaker 1: you push the subscribe button so you don't miss folks
Speaker 1: like our next guest, Adam Hansen, is talking about his
Speaker 1: new book all about innovation and overcome and cognitive biases.
Speaker 1: So I hope to catch you then in peace. Thanks
Speaker 1: for joining us for today's episode. To get the most
Speaker 1: out of this conversation. Visit Awesome at Your Job dot
Speaker 1: com to find today's show notes, transcript, and infographic submarine
Speaker 1: cheat sheet. For more entertaining professional skills oppening, be sure
Speaker 1: to subscribe to Gatt the next episode of How to
Speaker 1: Be Awesome at Your Job. H