Manage to Engage

In the last episode, I discussed how our schools and society condition us to put a premium on knowing.   Our identity forms around what we think we know about the world and ourselves, and we are afraid to reveal when we don’t know; it feels antithetical to our very being.   As a result, it becomes uncomfortable to sit and face the truth of not knowing — and most of us are never trained how or why...

You go to school. You’re presented with a whole host of topics that you know little to nothing about. Then, over the course of about twelve years, teachers repeatedly shove information down your throat, evaluating you based on your ability to regurgitate that information. Twelve years later, you know things. At least, you think you know the things that you were told.   You’re taught that you can o...

Sometimes, there really are systems put in place that make our jobs more difficult; there really is an external force causing some of our problems.   However, even in these situations, the solution is the same or similar to what we’ve been discussing over the past three episodes: you have to muster up the confidence or courage necessary to make yourself uncomfortable and talk to people about why t...

We’ve spent the last two episodes exploring why the questions we ask when we are experiencing a problem are really just excuses – and how we can, instead, turn the mirror on ourselves to find real solutions through radical honesty.   It’s not easy. In fact, it’s downright uncomfortable most of the time. But it’s necessary... if you want to evolve as a person, at least.   Today, we’re going to lear...

Last week, we talked about how most of us tend to use excuses to not just avoid real change, but subconsciously self-sabotage our lives. Today, we’re going to dig even deeper into the language of excuse and why we should endeavor to replace our excuses with “incuses.” I’d love your feedback. Click here to leave a rating & review for the show on iTunes .

We spend our lives looking out into the world for solutions to almost every problem.   Need to lose weight? I’ll try that new diet that worked for my friend. Feeling overwhelmed at work? I bet there’s a good productivity app I’m not using. Didn’t like a new movie? They ruined my childhood.   We’re always looking outside of ourselves, making excuses instead of searching for solutions – when, really...

In the last episode, I asked you to consider where you are cluttering up your life in the name of busyness.   Now, what is the minimum that you could do to have the same impact? What is the minimum effective dose of your time and energy?   Your busy mind may try to convince you that this is an exercise in laziness, but that’s precisely the mindset and conditioning that we’re trying to get beyond –...

In the last episode, I made what may seem like a bold claim: busyness very well may be what destroys us as a species.   But I’m not exaggerating. Busyness makes you stupid; It clutters your mind, and when your mind is cluttered, you don’t think as effectively, you’re not as conscious, you’re not as aware, and you don’t take as good care of yourself.    We’re all just doing doing doing. It’s not he...

Over the next three episodes, we’re going to get back to the basics of busyness and recuperation.   We’re going to analyze why we, as individuals and as a society, put such a high value on being busy, both consciously and subconsciously.   Because when we tell ourselves we’re busy, I think we’re all just lying in an effort to make ourselves feel better about whatever it is we’re doing – the busy m...

In the last episode, I asked you what management might look like when a parent wants their child to put away their laundry – a tale as old as time, or at least woven fabric.   Because, if your parents regularly remind you to do things, over and over, you will probably become a manager who nags their employees. The nagging from your parent made you resent them at the time, then later, you nagging y...

In the last episode, we established that supervision is when people don’t take things as far as they can without a manager following up or offering assistance; it is the act of making sure that someone does what they already know how to do. Management, on the other hand, is when someone takes something as far as they can, then a manager supports them in growing and learning.   But that’s just the...

Over the next three episodes, we’re going to explore one of the most critical dynamics in management: the differences between management and supervision and how the tension between these two causes most of us to experience some combination of lost productivity and existential angst.   We’ll start things off today with some definitions and, by the end of this series, connect these concepts to the a...

In the last episode, we explored the correlation between finding your passion path, finding your soulmate, and surrendering, and how our natural inclination to be in control can cause us to stray from the passion path.   Honing our awareness of this, as well as our awareness of our core values, is all a necessary part of the process.   Today, we will dissect a pivotal question that can both cause...

Last week, we established that finding your Passion Path is a journey, not a mission. There is no singular end goal that you’re ultimately working towards.   And like any good journey, we can’t control everything that happens. Of course, that doesn’t stop us from trying. We’ve discussed this common delusion before – the shared delusion that people know how reality tends to operate and, as such, ca...

If you didn’t have to work and you weren’t being paid, what would you do that creates value in the world?   That’s the question I asked at the end of the last episode, and it is the question that will help you find your Passion Path, or the day-to-day expression of your values, whereby you serve yourself as you serve others with your greatest gift.    And this Passion Path is half of the equation...

We start today’s episode with some reflections on the previous series about Desirable Difficulty. So, if you haven’t already listened to episodes 218 to 221, I recommend going back and listening to them first. It’ll be relevant later in this series as well.   We then segue into our topic for the next four episodes: your Passion Path.    We will view the nature of work from a historical point of vi...

Life isn’t about comfort. It’s easy to be tricked into thinking that, with all the ways humans have designed a world catering to comfort, but life doesn’t seem to agree.   Because life, again and again, comes back to bite us in the butt when we attempt to pursue lives that embody happiness and comfort.   On the other side of the coin, life always rewards us for choosing difficulty. It may not be w...

On the surface, a lot of us fear that we’re inadequate, not good enough, or powerless – but that’s just on a superficial level.   Underneath that, in the core of our beings, we are afraid of being powerful; we are making excuses to avoid the responsibility and expectations that come with our true potential.   Because where you are now is safe. It’s comfortable. And most of the human race is standi...

In the last episode, I introduced you to the concept of Desirable Difficulty, or the idea that personal growth and evolution only happen as a result of butting up against and working your way through a difficult problem or situation.   Is it fun? No. Is it necessary? Again, no.   But is it necessary if you want to achieve greatness? Absolutely.   So, today, we’ll be learning how this concept relat...

How engaged were you in school?   When you were taught a new principle in class and then given a homework assignment to do before the next class, were you engaged?   What if, instead, you were assigned the homework first? What if you were asked to do something really difficult, something that challenges your ability to think critically and solve problems? You would probably fail and you probably w...

Throughout this series, I’ve come back to the question, “Who do you want to become and how are you using your job to become it?” If you don’t have the answer to this question, then you are, by definition, not engaged at work – and if you don’t have an answer to this question, I’d venture a guess that the people who you manage probably don’t have an answer, either.   Because engaged managers produc...

If you normally listen to these episodes as a fly on the wall, I’d like you to approach today’s episode a little differently. I want you to put yourself in the seat of a person on this coaching call and imagine that I am asking you the questions that I ask in this episode.   These questions are meant to help you identify where the embodiment gap is in your life, or where your actions don’t express...

In the last episode, I introduced you to the Good Vs. Less Bad paradigm. We often have the option to make a system in our life good or less bad, and more often than not, we choose to make it less bad because making it good comes with costs that we don’t want to pay: emotional discomfort, facing the unknown, and actual change.   Today, we apply a critical lens to some real-life problems, reveal the...

If you’re consistently getting results that you don’t want, a system in your life is either broken or not working the way you think it is – and you will continue to get undesirable results until you know how the system works AND change something.   Otherwise, anything you do is just going to, at best, make things less bad. And we are all faced with this decision, over and over again, throughout ou...

I’d like to start the episode by going back to the question that started this series on hunger: Can we teach someone to be hungry? Can managers teach someone to want to be awake, to pursue excellence, to evolve, to learn, to grow?   Not exactly. You can’t make a horse drink water. However, you can make it as easy as possible for a horse to find water. You can help people navigate The Competence Pa...