3 Crucial Methods to Increase Work Productivity & How to Unlock Individual Success Through Collaboration

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Safety is the foundation of everything, and people think that
safety is about like swaddling people in cotton and making
them feel comfortable, when actually it's all about voice.

Speaker 2 (00:15):
Hey everyone, I'm so excited because we're going to be
adding a really special offering onto the back of my
solo episodes on Fridays. The Daily Jay is a daily
series on Calm and it's meant to inspire you while
outlining tools and techniques to live a more mindful.

Speaker 3 (00:31):
Stress free life.

Speaker 2 (00:32):
We dive into a range of topics and the best
part is each episode is only seven minutes long, so
you can incorporate it into your schedule no matter how
busy you are. As a dedicated part of the on
Purpose community, I wanted to do something special for you
this year, so I'll be playing a hand picked Daily
Jay during each of my Friday podcasts. This week, we're

(00:54):
discussing your relationship with work and how to be more present,
productive and purposeful. Of course, if you want to listen
to The Daily Jay every day, you can subscribe to Calm,
So go to Calm dot com forward slash j for
forty percent off your membership today. Welcome back to On Purpose,
the number one health podcast.

Speaker 3 (01:13):
In the world where we dive.

Speaker 2 (01:14):
Into your physical, mental, emotional, financial health, and I know
that wellbeing is a big priority for all of you,
and the wellbeing of the people you work with, the
wellbeing of the people that work for you, if you
have a team or a company, or you're an entrepreneur,
or even your family that you work together with. Culture

(01:36):
is at the heart of that and how we think
about the people that we interact with daily, how we
understand how to give them feedback, how to connect with them,
how to communicate with them more effectively. I mean, if
the quality of our life, which we know from Harvard's
seventy five year study that the quality of our life
is based on the quality of our relationships, then finding

(01:58):
great culture in our relations is such a key need.
I was exposed to the fascinating cultures of monk's lives
when I lived as a monk for three years, and
I gained so much from that culture that I adopted
and I brought into my work. But recently I came
across a book, and I'm always on the lookout for
that next book that's going to shift my perspective, change

(02:20):
my mind.

Speaker 3 (02:20):
And I'm a voracious reader. I read a ton.

Speaker 2 (02:23):
I'm always picking up new books at the airport at bookstores.
My friends are like Jay, like when do you get
all the time. I'm like, trust me, I just need
to dive in and learn what I can and take
what I can. And this book, I cannot speak more
highly of it because it has been so clarifying, it
has been so beautifully simplifying of what it means to

(02:47):
build culture, build teams, communicate effectively, give feedback effectively. And
so today's guest is the author of my current favorite book,
which is called The Culture Code. He's the New York
Times best selling author and this book was named best
business Book of the Year by Bloomberg, Book Pal and

(03:07):
Business Insider. His other books include The Talent Code, which
I haven't read yet, which I'm very excited to read,
The Little Book of Talent, The Secret Race, Lance Armstrong's War,
and Hardball, A Season in the Projects. He has served
as an advisor to many high performing organizations, including the
Navy Seals, Microsoft, Google, and the Cleveland Guardians. His new

(03:31):
book is called The Culture Playbook, sixty highly Effective Actions
to help your group succeed. It's the ultimate handbook for
fostering and cultivating as streams strong culture and we're going
to be using that book. Welcome to the show, Daniel Coyle. Daniel,
thank you so much for doing this.

Speaker 1 (03:49):
Thanks for having me Jay. It's really fun to be
with you.

Speaker 2 (03:52):
Yeah, and I really appreciated it. I know I was
talking about you everywhere. Literally, was talking about you on
my YouTube channel, I was talking about you on my Instagram.
And so when your team reached down they said, Hey,
does Jay want to speak to Daniel, I was like,
I mean, I don't think there's anyone I want to
speak to more right now. So today is basically my
opportunity to for free, which you usually get paid a

(04:13):
lot for, for free, ask you questions about your expertise
that I can apply inside my company and organization with
my team members. And if you're in the audience right
now and you're like, Jay, I don't have a company,
I'm not an entrepreneur. I'm you know, I don't own
my own business. Everything that we talk about will be
applicable to you, whether it's within your organization, within your company.

(04:34):
It even applies, in my opinion, to your family. It
genuinely applies to your friends and the people that you
connect with. So what I'm learning from Daniel in his
book is not just the culture code for businesses, but
it's a culture code for life. And I want you
to see it that way as well. So would you
would you agree with that?

Speaker 3 (04:49):
Daniel?

Speaker 2 (04:49):
I wanted to ask you that question off straight off
the bat, like I've been using your advice in my
personal life as much as my professional life.

Speaker 1 (04:56):
I appreciate that. No, I have too, And actually writing
the book was not any different.

Speaker 4 (05:00):
You know.

Speaker 1 (05:00):
We go into it with these ideas about what culture
is and how culture is built. Normally think culture is
sort of like the personality of a group, like it's
just sort of who they are, Like Disney is Disney,
and your culture of your group as you. And when
you sort of look beneath that, what you find is
that it's much more like a sport, it's much more
like a skill. It's much more like these these sort

(05:20):
of certain actions. It's not about who you are, it's
about what you do. It's about your behaviors. And there's
this like language of behaviors that helps people connect, that
helps people open up, that helps people figure out where
they want to go together. And it does feel kind
of like a discovery. I have to say, I still
feel like I'm like, I'm discovering new things about this
even after having written about it for so long ago.

Speaker 3 (05:41):
I love that.

Speaker 2 (05:41):
Let's let's define culture for anyone who's listening. And like
you said, like today we think of culture like music
or fashion, and we think of culturally relevant things, but
we also think about culture as you do talk about
as within a team, within a company, within a family,
within an organization. What are the key ten and that's
that define a culture? And please define culture for us

(06:04):
as well as that.

Speaker 1 (06:05):
It's so interesting you feel a culture when you walk
into a space with people, right, you walk into a
locker room, you walk into a kitchen of a restaurant,
you walk into a school, and you can feel it.
What are you feeling there? What is that made of?
I would define culture as a set of living relationships
moving toward a goal together. And the visual I want
you to picture is almost like a flock of birds
moving through the sky like they're connected. They're connected, they're

(06:29):
going around obstacles and they're moving somewhere together. And for
that to happen, there have to be these three behaviors happening.
There has to be behavior of connection, Like we're in right,
We're not spinning off and taking off. We're staying together.
We're sharing information so we can be kind of aware
of each other, and we're open and transparent about that.
And we're also know where we're headed. We like have

(06:49):
something in the windshield that says, this is where we're headed,
this is where we're not headed. So culture is not
like this sort of just this vibe. We always talk
about chemistry and magic of groups, right, it feels like
magic when we have it. Like if you were to
write now, think about the best most cohesive group you've
ever been a part of, Like you could close your
eyes and you would get a feeling like that what

(07:11):
it feels like to be with them and it Those
are like the peak experiences in life. But when you
x ray those, there are these behaviors underneath them. Right,
what we feel is that buzz and that champagne bubble
feeling of being with people we like to solve problems with,
we like to work with, and that energy and selflessness
you have in a group. But those champagne bubbles are

(07:32):
caused by a thing. There's a thing underneath there, and
that's safety sharing vulnerability and a sense of purpose, and
those behaviors that build that thing are what's fun to
tap into because then you sort of realize, hey, I
don't have to just like wait and hope for chemistry
to happen. I don't have to just sort of hope
that this new team gets along and we do well

(07:53):
on our project. I don't just have to hope that
when my kids come home from college for Christmas we
have a great time together. There's actually a they're there.
There's like moves you can make, things you can say
and do, and behaviors you can create, and spaces you
can create that help that happen. So it's a feeling
that you end up getting a feeling of like a

(08:13):
little more control over the most magical, mysterious part of life,
which is those relationships. Like that study said, like it's
all life is all about relationships. It's all about having
those peak moments, and if you can tap in to
the levers and tools that are causing those to happen,
it's it's a really good feeling.

Speaker 3 (08:32):
Yeah, let's talk about that a bit.

Speaker 2 (08:34):
I think one of the biggest challenges inside a company,
a family, a group, a team, especially in the beginning
is that everyone comes with their own intentions and their
own goals.

Speaker 3 (08:47):
Right.

Speaker 2 (08:47):
So someone may be turning up to this job just
to pay their bills. That's all they want. They want
nothing else to do with anyone or anything else. Another
person's coming in because they're saying, well, this is a
long term career for me. I want to make a
name for myself. I want to grow, I want to advance,
and I want to get some goals at this company.

Speaker 3 (09:04):
Another person comes in and they go, well, you know what, I'm.

Speaker 2 (09:09):
Here because I actually want to learn so that I
can extract what I know and then go do my
own thing.

Speaker 3 (09:18):
Right.

Speaker 2 (09:18):
So you have all of these different emotions, different intentions,
different psychologies in a group. I guess my question is
how do you then start forming culture when everyone's coming
for something completely different.

Speaker 1 (09:30):
Safety is the foundation of everything, and people think that
safety is about like swaddling people in cotton and making
them feel comfortable, when actually it's all about voice. So
if your group were to walk in, this group of
diverse people that you're talking about, who have diverse purposes
in their mind, diverse goals, the first thing you would
get them to do is to say tell me about that, like,

(09:50):
what do you want to do about this? A beautiful
design company and ideo that you've probably heard of that
has this series of meetings before every team project. They're
called flight meeting, and they say, hey, this is like
taking a trip. We're gonna have a pre flight meeting,
we're gonna have a mid flight meeting, we're gonna have
a post flight meeting. And it's a little calisthenic they do.
The meetings don't take long, but that's what they do
with that first meeting, like what are you in for?

(10:12):
What's gonna give you joy out of this? What do
you want to learn the most? And you create awareness
to go back to that flock of birds, like you'll
bump into each other if you don't know where you're
at and if you don't know where you're headed. And
the other big thing that happens in those first meetings
is defining that north star, like what are we really
all about? Let's come to some consensus. You might be

(10:32):
into the learning, you might be into the status, you
might be into sort of the exploration and the joy.
Let's find some language around and let's find some way
to define what that is. And let's keep defining that
a lot of groups come together and they just sort
of automatically say, well, our job together is to do
a good job, right, Our job together is to succeed,
whatever that means. But actually pausing, and this is where

(10:56):
I think our work kind of or overlaps in an
interesting way. I think a lot of you always talk
about is awareness creating awareness and these moments, and it
doesn't happen by accident. It happens when you take an
intentional pause. I think what this culture playbook and this
cultural skill set in general is really about getting great
at pausing as a group. Like, there's all this skill

(11:18):
set to pauses an individual. We talk about mindfulness, we
talk about all of these habits and rituals and mental
calisthenics that give us clarity. Groups are no different. They're
also an entity that needs to navigate and connect and
figure out what's important and what's not important. And so
that pause where you say, Okay, what are you most into,
what are you least into? Why are you here? Where

(11:40):
are we headed? If we can just get some really
simple language around that, that is the first step toward
making us cohere and start to move together.

Speaker 2 (11:50):
What are people's biggest fears when they're starting a new job,
and then as they progress in the workplace, what are
their greatest fears? Have you seen patent reset studies that
show that this is what people struggle with inside organizations
the most.

Speaker 1 (12:07):
It's pretty contextual. It would depend on the specific one,
but I think one very common one is reputational risk status.
You know, I can't afford to look dumb. I can't
afford to display weakness, which is why in all good cultures.
It's funny. I really found this out when I went
and visited a Navy seal. His name is Dave Cooper,
and Dave, he's a pretty normal looking guy. He's not

(12:30):
the best shot, he's not the best swimmer, he can't
bench press the most. He's the great at creating high
trust teams. That's what he's really great at. And he
actually trained the seal Team six that got bin laden.
And while we're at breakfast, he says these words. He says,
you know, the foremost important words a leader can say,
I screwed that up. Just really intriguing. Right, like Navy seals,

(12:54):
you should be pretty confident. You should be pretty bulletproof
metaphorically and literally, and yet here he is talking about
this profound fallibility, and I think what that sheds a
light on is how important sharing vulnerability is, especially if
you're in a position of power, because that gives everyone,
especially people new to the organization, a clear sense that, hey,

(13:16):
this is good to talk about this. We're here to
get better together. We're here to give each other, make
each other better and share that feedback and be fallible
and be weak. So it's really important to make that
to make that have that moment happen early on. You know,
in groups forms, there's like three critical moments when every
group forms. Moment one like the first five minutes you're together,

(13:37):
it's a big deal, like how are you going to
get along? Is it safe? Do people care? Does everyone
have a voice? Second one is the first disagreement. We're
going to disagree at some point, right, We're going to disagree,
and the norms we form around that disagreement are we
disagreeing along task conflict, which is we're going to have
our ideas, are going to fight and that's a good

(13:57):
sort of fight? Or is this personal right? And the
third one is the first moment of learning what's going
to happen? Are we going to really stop and point
out the fact we just got a little better. This
is really cool. I'm really glad you gave me that
feedback to make me better. So those critical moments, and
I think in successful groups they're really good at managing
those critical moments, spotlighting them and normalizing them. So it's

(14:19):
normal to be safe, it's normal to disagree. Thank you
for disagreeing with me. Let's have our ideas fight it out,
and it's great to learn you just made me better.
Thank you. And if you get those moments right, you're
investing in in the future success of the group in
a huge way. And yet our temptation is often to
like walk past those moments. Right, We're terrible at pausing.

(14:41):
Most teams are really good at do do do do
do action action action action. Action in the world gives
you a lot to do, Like we've never lived on
a planet or in an ecosystem that gives you more
information and more to do. And so the teams that
have got this strength, the strength of pausing, do you

(15:02):
think it great at stopping and saying what just happened? Here?
Are we still connected? How can we connect better? That
That's where the real.

Speaker 2 (15:10):
Power is yeah, absolutely, I'm implementing something new my team
right now that I've become a big fan of, and
we call it teach me how to treat you. So
it's people actually saying that, Hey, here's how I would
love to be treated when.

Speaker 3 (15:25):
I'm coming in in a bad mood.

Speaker 2 (15:27):
Here's how i'd love to be treated when I have
a bad idea. Here's how i'd love to be treated
when I have a good idea. Here's how i'd love
your response to be if we're working virtually. So someone
may say I don't like lots of messages virtually. I
prefer a phone call right than an instant message, or
I prefer i'm if I am feeling down, I prefer

(15:49):
you don't ask me about it and we just continue
as business as usual because that's easier for me. And
what I like about this is that it actually places
responsibility on us as individuals to have to explain to
others how we work and that first of all, if
you don't know that, you get an opportunity to figure
that out. Second of all, now you're not coming into
the workplace worrying why everyone's acting a certain way, because

(16:12):
you've actually asked them to be that way, and so
now you're free of that pressure of expectation of everyone
tiptoeing around you or not not knowing or worrying what
to do. So it's I'd love to share that with
you and go do you like that?

Speaker 3 (16:26):
Do you not like that?

Speaker 2 (16:27):
What part of it works? What doesn't work? How can
we improve that?

Speaker 1 (16:30):
You must have gotten my memo on how to treat
me because I love that idea. I think that's it.
That's a really, really good idea, and you're not the
only one to do it. That's one of the fascinating
things about this moment. We're living in a lot of
change in the landscape, a lot of change, and one
of the biggest that's causing all these experiments. And so
what you're describing I've heard described as user's guide. You know,

(16:51):
there's manual to me. I mean, we can a quick
start guide with our television sets, like why don't we
get it? With our people that we work with, it's
the exact same thing, and it's very powerful because it
creates two moments of reflection. As you just described. First moment,
You've got to figure out I'm at my best when
I'm at my worst, when what I need from you is,

(17:11):
what I don't need from you is and then that
person gets an opportunity to see that and reflect. And so, yeah,
that is exactly the kind of pause. I think it
allows a team to navigate together. And you know, this
landscape is asking us to do groups to do two
things that are very difficult. Right now, how do you
stay connected and change at the same time? You know,

(17:34):
hybrid work, huge change, social justice questions, big change in questions,
new generations coming into the workplace with a new idea
of the social contract around work, huge change. So how
do you like stay malleable? You know where I'm connected,
but I'm able to reshape myself almost like that flock
of birds and navigate together. And I love that. I

(17:55):
love that user's manual idea that you have teach me
how to treat you. That's really really good.

Speaker 3 (18:00):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (18:00):
No, And I love hearing the other language for the
user manual or the user guide. I think that's really
interesting as well. And I could agree with you more.
I think I love the idea of the pause that
you're saying and filling that pause effectively. And I think
one of the biggest things when I pause or I
encourage people to pause or I hear from them. I
know that a lot of people will be listening right

(18:21):
now and say, Jay Daniel, my workplace is a toxic environment, right,
it's a negative environment. I struggle with being there sometimes
I don't look forward to going to work, or if
we're working virtually, I am drained by it, not just
by the tech of it, but the actual interactions. What

(18:42):
does someone in that scenario, how did they have to
How can they think or rethink what they're doing or
how they can function in that space?

Speaker 1 (18:51):
Don't think, just run. If it's that toxic, get out.
That would be number one. Number two is a saying
that I've come to really appreciate, which is that sure
is the fifteen feet around you, and there's a circle
of control. And there's a lot of things about our
life that we cannot control. There's a lot of things
about our jobs and particularly that we cannot control. But
having positive, healthy, learning, safe interactions with a small group

(19:16):
is a doable thing. It is an absolutely doable thing.
And one of the exercises we have in the playbook
is you have a you are the center of a circle,
and then you sort of track your map around you
putting the initials of people you work with, and the
closer they are to you, the more secure and strong
that relationship is. And the idea is to kind of
map that in your mind and identify where those strength

(19:37):
is and identify where you might want to build and
grow those relationships by sending signals of safety and connection,
by maybe being vulnerable a little bit, so seeking those
things out. And the other thing I think that helps
those sorts of situations is to put focus on the
learning piece of it. You know, that's the one thing

(19:59):
that we're work can often give us opportunity, access to
make us better in some small, meaningful way, and trying
to seek out those opportunities. There is another very simple
concept that I've seen some cultures do that I talk
about in the book too. It's called flash mentoring. It's where,
you know, getting a mentor is a really big ask,

(20:21):
It's a really big deal these heavy relationships. Well, some
groups have solved for that by creating flash mentorships where
a smaller ask you go to someone you admire, even
if it is a largely toxic place, find somebody who's
work you admire, and say, would you mind if I
just like walked you, you walked me through your typical day,
or tell me how you prepared for that presentation, or

(20:44):
give me some feedback on this. Smaller, shorter, coffee sized
interactions that are built around learning can be a really
effective way to get a little bit more out of
that work.

Speaker 2 (20:53):
Dare Yeah, I really like how specific that is. Often
when we think about mentorship, we're like, I want you
to be my mentor, and it's like this big life
decision and that person may not have time, they may
not have the energy. We miss out on the opportunity,
as you're saying, to learn something specific in short term
that could have an amazing impact. And also that person
could see you apply what they just shared with you,

(21:15):
and then with that mini experiment they go, oh, I'd
love to mentor you further, right, So it builds that
trust in these mini bites and chunks rather than someone
takes you on. You can't deliver, you have something personal
going on, and all of a sudden they feel like, well,
why am I wasting my time mentoring this individual too?
Where that leads me to a really interesting places. Can

(21:36):
people impact and shift culture when they're not the boss,
when they're not in charge Is it possible.

Speaker 1 (21:43):
Yes, it is, it is. It's difficult. It's difficult, and
that the words that I would use are a word
that you just use, which is experiment being oblique. I've
seen people influence culture when they have a bad boss
and the boss doesn't want to change by providing that
boss with a book that might you know, sliding in
their door, or creating a conversation, or forgetting the boss

(22:06):
and just trying to model and create what does a
great group look like. Let's have a coffee gathering at
ten am every Monday and start talking about creative new
ideas and that initiative which is born in that idea.
That culture is the fifteen feet around you that you
have control over the signals you send. In the larger sense,

(22:27):
the idea here is one. It's a really important distinction
between the things that are complicated and things that are complex.
We often tend to think that culture is just if
I do the right thing, the right thing will happen.
There'll be some linear effect, like if I just had
the right thing to coss right. But that's not actually
how it goes. Culture isn't just complicated. Culture is actually

(22:48):
complex complicated things. There's a way to do it, like
it's building an engine of a Ferrari. Like I can
give you the diagram and you can follow the diagram
and you'll build it. But complex things change every time
you do anything. So it's the difference between you know,
building an engine and raising a kid. So every time
you do a little experiment, a little probe in the

(23:09):
culture area, pay attention to what happens and amplify the
good things and kind of ignore the bad things. So
if you're building, culture is about doing these constant sort
of probes and experiments. Let me try, let me try
a book, let me flip him a video, let me
show her a conversation that I had recently, Let me
try this coffee thing, let me try that, And you'll

(23:31):
find as you sort of you'll experiment forward in a direction,
and like with any experiment, you'll make some discoveries and
you'll and follow that energy and see where it leads.
You know, culture is not like legos. It's not like
you can just say put this thing on that thing
and this thing. It's a conversation. You're having a conversation
with your group, and in every conversation you send a

(23:53):
signal and then you wait and listen and see where
it's going and see what you learned and see what
I discovered.

Speaker 2 (24:00):
Yeah, when you're doing that, explore and discover. One thing
that's really interesting is that I believe, you know, inside
a healthy organization, you'll have good performers and then exceptionally
high performers. How do you go about managing an exceptionally
high performer within a group because often what happens is
high performers are just so productive and effective that they

(24:22):
either take on everything themselves or people may struggle to
keep up with them or work with them because they
can see that this individual is highly independent, highly self motivated.
But at the same time, and you see this in
sports when I think about you know, when I think
about soccer, which is my favorite sport, having grown up
in England, you look at stars like Cristiano Ronaldo or

(24:44):
Lionel Messi or these phenomenal talents, and then in the US,
people like Tom Brady or Lebron James. Right, you have
these characters and these personalities. How do you effectively bring
them into the world and help people Because in some
of those examples, there's a natural respect and admiration for

(25:04):
that person because of their almost elite status. But in
the workplace it's not always like that. It's not always
as clear cut as you know, this person's the one
who's who's gonna win us the championship, right.

Speaker 1 (25:16):
No, it's interesting, and that's a great analogy with the
world of sport. I mean, there are there are occasionally superstars.
The way the world is moving though, is that I
think a lot of times those superstars reputation exceeds what's
actually happening. Our world is so complicated that even with stars,
they are inevitably not solo actors. They're not out there

(25:38):
doing it around. There is a connective web of people
and information and systems that are supporting them. There's a
cool study that Adam Grant referenced in a recent book
where they took star surgeons, star surgeons from different hospitals
away from their teams, and they watched how they performed
when they moved to a different hospital. And the same
thing with traders, great finance traders, and they saw how

(26:01):
they performed when they changed firms. When these people lost
contact with their system of support, their their performance went
back to average. I think the cultural move here is
to not to celebrate the star, but to illuminate the support,
to spend time talking about praising in certain case, illuminating spotlighting,
making mantras around the collective activity that's producing. Who passed

(26:24):
the ball to Rinaldo you know who cleared away the
defense so that he had a clear move in. I
think that's a much more healthy place to go, especially
as our world moves more and more into these you know,
collective spaces. You know, lately we've been seeing all of
these films about toxic founders of tech firms. Right, we

(26:45):
were faranos uber. And the reason that all those tragedies
happened was that everybody believed in the myth of the superstar.
Everyone believed that Elizabeth Holmes is different, Travis Kalnick is different,
you know, Adam Newman is different, and that is not true.
Like those people do not exist anymore. There was a time,

(27:07):
I'll bet Henry Ford had more in his brain than
anybody else, and he was the person you should go
to for vision direction and he had the answers. But
we live in a world that moves way too fast.
We move in a world that's way too complex. To
go back to that word, to have any single person.
So if any person comes up and says I have
all the answers, that is a huge red flag that

(27:29):
they definitely don't. As Pete Seeger said, be wary of
great leaders, hope for many good small leaders, right, And
I think there's a deep truth in that. And so
having a system that celebrates stars is as we move
into this area, as we move into our future where
things are moving faster than ever, more interconnected than ever,

(27:49):
that's a less healthy approach than the team that we
have a bunch of stars and everybody's playing a role
and is aware and helpful, useful.

Speaker 2 (28:00):
I really appreciate that, because, yeah, it's an interesting dynamic
because I think back to when I was in the workplace,
and so I worked at Accentia for a few years
and you know, had a really great career there, have
a really great relationship with the company, and it was
a phenomenal time for me. I learned a lot, developed
a lot, and I found that there were some leaders

(28:23):
that were just exceptional at championing young talent, you know,
at other times in organizations, I found that a lot
of leaders are intimidated by young talent or condescending towards
and they feel like, well, what do you know, You've
only been around for two minutes. And I think that
balance is really interesting because as much as you don't
want to put too much value on star culture, you

(28:45):
don't want to damp and star potential because I think
that's I saw so many friends leave organizations when I
knew that person was really talented, and I knew that
person had so much to offer, but the company wasn't
able to understand and then dial that in. And that's
something that I say to everyone on my team that
as much as I want them to have a professional

(29:05):
goal and a personal goal they want to learn, but
beyond both of those, I want them to have a
goal that is about their potential, and I want to
be the person to help them fulfill their potential. Like
that's always one of the things I say to anyone
who joins our company. It's like, I want you to
fulfill your potential here or even if it's not here,
I want you to fulfill your potential. I want to
be a part of that because I know that I

(29:27):
would have wanted to hear that when I joined an organization,
and I never really felt that I heard that as clearly,
and I found that you know, for some people who
is that, well, if you leave, then we don't you know,
you're no longer connected to us. And if you stay,
then you play by our rules. And I think that
was always a really, really fascinating thing.

Speaker 1 (29:46):
So enlightened as there's certain points where being morally good
and being smart crossover and actually are the same thing.
And that's a moment where it is and I see
that over and over again. There's a I do some
consulting for the Cleveland Guardians baseball team, and occasionally one
of our assistant coaches will get an opportunity to be
a head coach and another team, and there's a bit
of a tradition, a habit of custom that when that

(30:08):
coach gets that interview, the front office of circles around
that person and helps them, helps them build their worksheets,
helps them build their plan, tells them what suit to wear.
It gives them contextual information and sends them on their way.
And it's a beautiful thing. You're losing someone, but you
are deepening a relationship. And life is long. You know,

(30:29):
people will circle back around and you will always have
that relationship. And I think that's I think that's a
very enlightened and wise way to approach that sort of
off boarding moment.

Speaker 2 (30:41):
Yeah, I think moving forward with that, there's something that
I find which I really loved from your book, and
I'm excited to see how the playbook makes this more
practical and applicable. And that's what I love about the
culture Code. It really dulls you into the philosophy, and
I'm guessing the playbook allows you to really, you know,
take action on those ideas, which which I think is

(31:02):
a brilliant combination. Let's talk wout two really interesting things
in the workplace, gratitude and appreciation and then feedback. And
the challenge with gratitude is that it can come across
as flattery and cheap words. And the challenge with feedback
is that it can come across as criticism or judgment.

(31:23):
Walk us through what you found is the best ways
of showing praise, gratitude and appreciation and the best ways
of giving feedback inside an organization that actually helps the
person digest how you're feeling and what you want them
to take away larger.

Speaker 1 (31:39):
Yeah, that was a g I really love that this
idea around appreciation of continually reflecting back someone's impact, and
impact ends up being a really, really important word. There's
a certain kind of appreciation that happens to good culture
that is rarely talked about. It was introduced to me
by the people at Pixar, who talk about the pleasure
of solving hard problems with people you admire, the pleasure

(32:03):
of Harvard solving hard problems with people you admire. There's
a misnomer, sort of this mistaken idea that life in
top performing cultures is always happy and positive, that if
you were to go work at Pixar, that you go
to a meeting and every idea would be a brilliant
idea and everyone would applaud and then every draft of
the movie would be better and better and better than
the last. In fact, when you go to that place,

(32:26):
as well as any other place, it's not that way.
There's profound disagreement, there's profound tension, but they're circled up
around that problem shoulder to shoulder, trying to figure out
how to make it better, and that the pleasure of that,
the appreciation they have for each other in those moments,
is very special. In fact, people will leave cultures and
often come back for that feeling. That's a special feeling,

(32:48):
but specifically with appreciation. I think we have to go
back to that word impact. When appreciation is bad, it
sounds like sort of at a boy, what a coach
would tell a player a nice job, good job, go,
And it's vague, it's generalized, it's not specific to the
person when it's good. And I saw an example of this,
and I think I wrote about it in the playbook.

(33:09):
One example is a weekly impact note. There was a
it's where you once a week make the habit of
capturing the impact your team has had on the world
and on the group, crystallizing it in a very very
specific language, and sharing it back to the team, almost
like a little newspaper of the week. Here's the impact
we had in the world this week. This health clinic
that did it would gather patient feedback and they would say,

(33:31):
Nurse Johnson treated me really nicely, really warmly. They would
share that back. So that idea of continually reflecting back,
which actually connects to the purpose conversation, because you always
end up I think using those moments of appreciation as
a way to spotlight your north star as kind of
a beacon to say, here's what we look like at

(33:52):
our best. If we can define that and feel that,
and name those behaviors and feel those. The better we
get at that, the better we're going to function, the
better we're going to perform. When it comes to feedback,
I have a problem with the whole word. The whole
concept is a little bit off. It's wrong the idea
that someone can watch me work and get little samples,

(34:14):
tiny sample sizes of my work, and then once every
six month, come in and tell me what I'm doing
well and what I'm doing poorly. The studies actually show
that most feedback is pretty darn and accurate. It's based.
We tend to be biased toward people that resemble us.
We tend to be biased toward the most immediate work
they've done. It ends up often creating a bad interaction

(34:34):
because you have someone who is not informed and not
ready trying to kind of muscle up to deliver some
feedback to somebody underneath them, and it's got all kinds
of problems that break apart groups good feedback. A better
way to do it was taught to me by a
woman named Ellen ven Houston, who teaches leadership at Case
Western University. She flips it. Instead of giving someone feedback,

(34:57):
you ask them two questions. It's the more differently question.
You ask them, what do you think you should do
more of? It's a really powerful question actually, and I'm
not trying to tell you anything. I'm just saying it
creates a reflection where they have to say, what's had
the biggest impact lately? Where have I learned the most?
What am I most excited by? What you should do more?
And the second question is what do you think you

(35:18):
should do differently? That's without being aggressive or threatening. That's
another one that gets me to ponder where I might
want to change my mind. So creating these kind of
safe zones to have the reflection is really what feedback's about.
So I see a lot of groups moving away from
the big semi annual annual review where you're going to

(35:39):
get the truth which isn't really the truth from someone
who doesn't really know, and moving toward these coaching conversations
where they're continually asking those questions, what's working right now,
what are you excited about? What are you worried about
right now? Let's talk about that and see again, it's
that conversational nature of culture building that is at the

(35:59):
core of it's like it's like photosynthesis, right, You've got
to have these conversations and they'll they'll grow you.

Speaker 3 (36:06):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (36:06):
I love how you just, you know, busted the myth
around feedback, right, Like I think that there's so much
emphasis on how to give the perfect feedback or how
to give the right feedback, And you do give an
amazing example that you I think extrapolate from both popovic
and school exams and school essays and how feedback is

(36:29):
given to students who perform really well in the Culture Code,
which which I loved, which was that safety making them
feel a part of something bigger and also sharing it
with them knowing that you're saying, I actually know that
you can reach this level, Like I actually believe you
can get there.

Speaker 3 (36:44):
But what you've said right now, I.

Speaker 2 (36:46):
Think is really really incredible because you're so right that
we think that based on a small sample of observation,
we can make a judgment about someone's performance, and the
truth is that we don't know their intention, We don't
know why they did that, we don't know what they

(37:06):
were thinking about. Maybe they were three steps ahead and
something else went wrong, Like we just have no idea,
And those questions are really brilliant.

Speaker 3 (37:14):
I found this.

Speaker 2 (37:15):
So in our organization, what we do is we do
a quarterly review, which includes a self assessment and then
a joint manager assessment. And what I find really interesting
every time I do that is how wrong I am
and how differently I'm thinking in the sense of often I'm
placing more emphasis on something else that seems to be

(37:38):
important to me, and I'm not able to see what
the person is emphasizing. But that conversation opens it up.
So we sit down and we're doing a you know,
they've done their self assessment. I say, hey, how do
you think you've been performing in this area and why?
And they will list of all these things that they've
done well or things they need to do less off
or differently, and I'm thinking, wow, I didn't even think

(37:59):
about how off of those things, Like how incredible is
it that this is giving me an opportunity to even
be more grateful and appreciate this person more. And I've
found something really interesting. And obviously this is not verifiable statistically,
because I'm it's anecdotal.

Speaker 3 (38:15):
For me.

Speaker 2 (38:16):
I found that the top performers inside my organization are
people who give themselves lower ratings than I give them
so often that I'll be sitting down with some of
my best people and in every review they'll rank.

Speaker 3 (38:32):
Themselves lower than I did.

Speaker 2 (38:33):
And I'm sitting there going I give it like you're amazing,
like you know you're incredible, and they they are actually
looking at more ways to improve. And I find that
so fascinating as a trend that I've seen over time.

Speaker 1 (38:45):
I love that. No, it's very true. It's certainly true
in the sports world. You asked, you know, somebody's doing
doing Brilliantly, Ask Christianna how I was doing, and I
might not say brilliant. So it's a measure of there
in these internal narratives that we don't really have access to,
these internal standards, and an approach of humility. There is
a Navy seal commander who called it, called it a

(39:06):
backbone of humility that's required with leadership. And I love
that phrase because the humility is really it's a strength.
This is not humility, isn't bending. It's actually being strong
enough to realize I'm actually only seeing a tiny part
of the picture here. And I need to learn. I
need to be humbly. I need to humbly learn what's

(39:27):
happening in this situation.

Speaker 2 (39:28):
Yeah, And I think learning why people are making the
decisions they are teaches you so much more than the
decision they made. And so often in your head you're
telling yourself a story of like, oh, they should have
thought about this, and they didn't think about this, And
as soon as you ask them, you realized they thought
about all of that and more than you did, and
you're humbled, And it's so much easier to be humble

(39:49):
in the first place.

Speaker 3 (39:51):
You know.

Speaker 2 (39:51):
One of the things that I genuinely struggle with, Daniel,
this is a personal question. Is this challenge that I
currently have in my life where not only am I
a host, an author, a coach in my own profession,
but at the same time, I'm a CEO and a leader,
And the time I spend on cameras in the time
i'm with you right now, or interviewing a guest, or

(40:14):
I'm hosting a TV show or whatever it may be,
I'm not with my team because I'm doing tasks that
are creative and outward facing. And so a lot of
CEOs may do a bit of press, but majority of
time they're working on the product with the team. They're
in those groups. They don't necessarily live this combined life

(40:34):
that a lot of people live today where they're creators
their talent, they're on camera, but then they also lead teams.
And I genuinely believe that my life is going to
be an experiment in figuring out how to do this,
because I find that naturally, when I'm doing more of
one of them, it takes away from the time I
get to do the other, and both are integral to

(40:54):
the work I do. So have you found any great
stories or case studies of how people have created not balance,
because I don't think it's about equality. I think it's
about creating the right practices and systems that allow you
to operate in both worlds right.

Speaker 1 (41:08):
A couple of things I've observed. One is that when
you look at any single when you think there's a
single leader, you're often wrong. There's often this pairing thing
that happens when if you look at Pixar, it's Ed
Capmill and John Lassiter. When you look at the San
Antonio Spurs, it's R. C. Buford and Greg Popovich, and

(41:29):
so finding this unique soulmate partner who really has a
different domain interest than you to make it work. It
is as you say, like physics is going to stop
you at some point, right, I mean, there's only so
many hours and only so much energy, and you've got
a lot of priorities to do. So finding that partner
and cultivating, searching and developing that teamwork around that I

(41:53):
think is incredibly powerful. And the other thing is I
think always trying when you do have that fork in
the road where you need to decide between should I
be productive or should I focus on my people? To
bias towards your people. When you have that, if it
feels like a coin flip, go toward the people. It
was on a call that involved General Mattis, who used

(42:16):
to head up all of NATO's forces, and someone asked
him how he spent his day, and he said, I
spent about forty five minutes on NATO's strategy, and I
spent the rest of the time coaching my leaders. The
rest time was coaching leaders, Like eight nights of my
day was coaching my leaders. And those conversations end up

(42:36):
feeling inefficient at the time they feel like you're, oh
my god, I am not doing the important stuff, But
in fact that's an illusion. You are doing the important
stuff because you're investing in creating clarity, a landscape, a
connection that you guys can navigate it together. So those
are the two things that come to mind as you

(42:56):
mentioned that.

Speaker 2 (42:57):
Yeah, and I see myself moving in that direct of
wanting to you know, I constantly want to be spending
more time with my leaders and my teams, like that's
that's all I want to be doing. And I completely
see the value in that. And I'm learning how to
how to carve that time out because they also need
support and help and and you know everything else that

(43:17):
comes with it. It's not kind of like an outsourced
delegation job, which which is not my style anyway, but
but I noticed that that they need that support from me.
You've talked about having icebreakers or conversation starters for meetings,
and I love that idea because to me, like I'm
want to you know, I come from the world of
like meditation and porse and stillness, So for me, a

(43:40):
reflection question is like one of my favorite things.

Speaker 3 (43:42):
And I have this restaurant in here in La that.

Speaker 2 (43:44):
I love to go to called Cafe Gratitude because they
always have a question of the day when you go
there and they'll give you the question of the day
as a table and then you know, anyone, even anyone
who's not used usually into this kind of stuff, is like.

Speaker 3 (43:56):
Oh yeah, maybe that's that's really cool idea.

Speaker 2 (43:58):
Right, So what are some of the ones those five
minute warm ups before meetings that help the quality of
the meeting itself? What are some of your favorite ones
or examples you've seen work really well?

Speaker 1 (44:09):
Yeah, this hybrid thing, it's weird, right, I mean, you're
creating this new space. And as somebody pointed out, is
a man named Glenn Fajardo who wrote a book on
virtual rituals. He's from the Stanford Design School. It's good,
really interesting book. But the insight he has is virtual
is voluntary. Like if we're actually in a root together,
you kind of have to pay attention to me. I

(44:29):
kind of have to pay attention to you. But to
be virtual, you actually have to create this, this shared space.
And this is a this is a weird connection. But
I was this weekend I did one of Tony Robbins
virtual events. I gave a short presentation at one, like
for forty minutes beforehand, what were they doing. They weren't
talking about ideas, they were playing really loud music and

(44:51):
basically doing yoga and dancing like they were creating this
shared state, not saying that everyone has to do that,
but in this sort of hybrid world, to take a
minute and try to create some shared space. And some
of the ideas for doing that are, you know, playing music,
are having everybody like bite a lemon at the same moment.

(45:13):
Eating on camera turns out to be weirdly effective. It's
like breaking bread together is one of the more sort
of powerful things that people do together, and it feels
very strange to eat on camera at first, but as
you sort of get used to it, that can be
also sort of a very simple, powerful thing to do.
But whatever you do, whether it's you know, a little
guessing game where you play a song and guess whose
favorite song it is, whatever that might be, just think

(45:35):
about creating that shared space in a way that doesn't
have to do with the work you're doing, in a
way that just deals with the person the people you
are at this moment. All that said, it is really
hard to form real relationships online the smart groups right now,
and the smart money is in toggling in having people
if they are hybrid, having times where they are flying

(45:58):
and getting together for a short amount of time where
it's maybe half fun and half work, but having that
time and not saying we're going to live completely in
the virtual world, because that physical connection acts like a
booster shot, like like now I really know you, and
now we can really work together.

Speaker 3 (46:16):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (46:16):
Absolutely, And I'm glad you clarified that, because I think
a lot of this stuff is possible virtually, even though
we know that it's better physically, but it is possible
to do these small games and ideas virtually, and that
does form a better connection.

Speaker 3 (46:31):
I know.

Speaker 2 (46:32):
One of the things I was mentioning to people is,
you know, I do feel we get such an intimacy
by being in people's homes right now, right and we
have for quite a while now. But one of the
things I would do is I'd always say to a
lot of people, Hey, I'm not being creepy, I'm just
being curious. I want to know what's in your background,
Like what's that a picture of or what's that behind you?
And I found that that just opened up such a

(46:53):
natural story from them.

Speaker 3 (46:56):
And a natural question.

Speaker 2 (46:58):
So I remember one of mys had a paint brush
hanging on his wall and I was just like why
do you have a paintbrush on your wall? And he
started laughing and he goes, no one ever asks me.
And I was like, well, I'm asking you, so I
want to know. I'm being curious, not creepy. And he said,
you know what, my first ever job was that I
used to paint fences, and then I used to paint walls,
and he goes, then I finally got to paint homes

(47:19):
and it was like a summer job. And now he's
a big executive of a large company. And he was like,
I keep that there to remind me of where I started.

Speaker 3 (47:27):
And I loved that story.

Speaker 2 (47:29):
Then I started telling him about how my first job
was that I was a paper delivery boy, right, I
used to go around be a paper boy in my area.
And all of a sudden we were talking about first jobs,
and I thought, Wow, this is a really cool question
to ask people because it shares so much about their
history and where they started. And so that became one
of my favorite questions to ask people, is like, what
was your first job ever? So I'm going to ask you, Daniel,
what was your What was your first job ever?

Speaker 1 (47:51):
Oh my god, I was I was a greeter in
a hospital. I was like, at the time, I wanted
to be a doctor, and so I stood by the
door and kind of I wheeled people in and wheeled
them out, and you know, new babies and pregnant women
to wheel them in and wheel out a new baby,
and it was it was both really fun. It really
gave you. So everybody comes to the hospital, right, you
know you however, you know smaller, bigger world is you

(48:14):
see everybody coming. And so that sort of interaction I
think sparked something in me as a as a journalist
and made me know that I never wanted to be
a doctor.

Speaker 3 (48:23):
What was it?

Speaker 2 (48:23):
What do you think was the biggest lesson you learned
from that? Like, was there was there a takeaway or
an inside that you feel really planted the seed in
you that stayed with you.

Speaker 1 (48:32):
I think banter is underrated, Like I think it really
the power of banter, the power of like just having
a little light touch and being able to chat people
up is one of the strongest powers in the universe.
And and I think that really showed me that because
you know, you're taking people and some of them are
in pain, and some of them are scared, and and
those little interactions can have a big impact on the space.

Speaker 2 (48:55):
Yeah, what it would have been, I mean, bantering organization
is you know, I feel like it's at an interesting
time because everyone's sensitivities have changed. Everyone's like, you know,
barriers and boundaries have changed as well, for good reasons
and also some of them, you know, for personal reasons,
which of course has to be respected and understood. And
it's it can be quite hard to build a banter

(49:18):
based culture. I know that when people see me and
my wife talking, because we're both from London, the word
banter for us is is literally how our life functions.
And people see me and my wife in this and
sometimes be like, are you guys okay? Like you know,
it's everything okay, and which is like, no, this is banter,
like this is how we're playful with each other. You know,
often banter can be misconstrued. How do you build the

(49:41):
trust first in order to be able to have banter?

Speaker 3 (49:45):
Like what?

Speaker 2 (49:45):
Because I feel sometimes we do it the other way around.
We think banter builds trust, but often I don't think
that's true anymore. I think trust allows you to have banter.

Speaker 1 (49:54):
Yeah, I think you're right. I think you're right. In vulnerability,
allows you to have trust, and I think the fastest
way to sort of build that is to do things together.
You know, there's nothing like actually doing something in the
real world that will create that trust, and there's nothing
and to do it away from where you're not capturing
it in words. I think one of the reasons that
we're so divided and it's such a difficult time is

(50:15):
that we're relying on people reading, and reading is a
terrible way to get to know someone. Reading someone's comments
these words they form in their head and they type
them out, and then you read them and form some
idea in your head. It's absolutely a terrible way to
get to know someone. So doing something in real life
is by far the most sort of powerful thing that

(50:37):
you can do, whatever, as big or as small as
that may be. And also the power of story in
this situation, like you know, the story you just shared
about your friend with the painter, the story I just
shared being comfortable enough, And that's where those icebreakers, I
think come in, because they they start at a safe
place where they're going back to what was your favorite
meal growing up. They started a place where we're free

(50:59):
of kind of the larger political forces that were that
we're navigating right now, and you start from there and
then and then build up.

Speaker 3 (51:06):
I love that, Daniel.

Speaker 2 (51:07):
You've been so generous with your time and so many
great insights and advice. And at the end of every
on Purpose episode we do a final five. This is
a fast five round, which means that every answer has
to be given in one word or one sentence maximum,
so you have that little bit of room to play with. So,
Daniel Coyle, these are your final five?

Speaker 3 (51:28):
Are you ready?

Speaker 1 (51:29):
Right?

Speaker 3 (51:29):
Bring it awesome? All right?

Speaker 2 (51:30):
So the first question is what's the best advice you
ever heard or received?

Speaker 1 (51:36):
Look twice, always look twice.

Speaker 3 (51:38):
Oh. I like that. We've never had that on the
show before. Really really like that.

Speaker 2 (51:43):
Second question, what's the worst advice you've ever received or heard?

Speaker 1 (51:49):
Trust your first insects.

Speaker 3 (51:51):
Yeah, there you go.

Speaker 1 (51:52):
I like that.

Speaker 2 (51:53):
I like that's that's so let's let's dive into that
a little bit because I think people have a belief that, like,
your first impression is always your first instinct is always right.

Speaker 3 (52:02):
Why do you think that's such bad advice?

Speaker 1 (52:04):
Well, it's not true. You know when they look at
when when your studies of whether it's exams or anything
Adam Grant wrote the great book called Think Again, all
about this moment. But it were built to do. We're
built to crave that certainty, right, and that certainty was
useful for all of history until sort of recently, and
now that that certainty is what is often dividing us

(52:25):
and often causing us to make bad decisions. So being
able to zoom out like that ability today we've got
you almost think of it as you've got these two
brains inside your brain. One likes to really grasp things,
the other is able to zoom out. And so realizing,
wait a minute, am I using this narrow spotlight right now?
Or am I looking through my peripheral vision at more?
And gaining control over that is a really powerful thing

(52:48):
because it causes you to look twice yep.

Speaker 2 (52:51):
Third question is what is your current purpose? How would
you define your current purpose?

Speaker 1 (52:57):
Teaching culture? That's that's the teaching the fundamentals. Teaching the
fundamentals of culture. This is how this is how it works,
This is how that language works.

Speaker 2 (53:06):
The question number four is what trait of culture or
leadership are you currently fascinated by that you're currently learning
about that you haven't yet fully grasped.

Speaker 1 (53:16):
I think the power of group reflection, creating these spaces
where groups can actually think together.

Speaker 3 (53:21):
Right, Yeah, I don't think we figured that out yet.

Speaker 4 (53:23):
I agree it's crazy because we're hired as individuals, we
train in school as individuals, we're assessed as individuals, we
think of ourselves as individuals, and yet all the big
things in life happen because of groups, and and we
put no energy or attention to figure out what's that?

Speaker 1 (53:39):
What's that? It's best?

Speaker 3 (53:40):
Yeah? I love that all right.

Speaker 2 (53:42):
Fifth and final question is if you could create one
law or one habit that everyone in the world had
to follow, what would it be?

Speaker 1 (53:49):
Be nice?

Speaker 3 (53:51):
Simple? Easy?

Speaker 1 (53:52):
Yeah, really simple? Really, so you have to be nice?

Speaker 3 (53:54):
How do you define nice? How do you define nice?

Speaker 1 (53:57):
I'll edit myself. I'll say be kind. It's it's an
action with consideration of the other. The kindness is of behavior,
it's not just a thought. So to actually bring that
to life, I.

Speaker 3 (54:09):
Love that everyone. This is Daniel Coyle.

Speaker 2 (54:11):
The book is the Culture Playbook, sixty highly effective actions
to help your group succeed. Highly recommend you get the
Culture Code and the Culture Playbook. I know I'm going
to be ordering the Culture playbook straight away, so make
sure you do that as well. It's just brilliant to
understand Daniel's ideas and the research and the studies that
he shares inside the book, but then to have these

(54:32):
sixty highly effective actions to help you actually take action
and apply on those. I mean, you couldn't find a
better combination, to be honest. So I really hope you're
going to go and grab both copies. Will put the
links into the podcast section. Daniel, any last words, any
last thoughts. You've been incredible. I'm so grateful to get
to meet you. I'm excited to develop our connection and

(54:53):
relationship more as well. But any final words or final
thoughts you want to share me too?

Speaker 1 (54:57):
Thanks for having me. You're very good at what you do.
I think you model the sort of connective sensitivity, insight,
and curiosity that good culture is made of. So thanks
for letting me be part of it.

Speaker 3 (55:07):
Thank you. That means a lot.

Speaker 2 (55:08):
Yeah, no, A lot of the questions today were for me.
A lot of them were things that I'm fascinated by,
and I left everything else in the book. There is
so many amazing insights in the book that I didn't
even dive into today. Everyone because I want you to
read the book. It's brilliant. So Daniel, thank you so
much again, have a great, great day, and I really
appreciate meeting you.

Speaker 3 (55:28):
Thank you so much.

Speaker 1 (55:29):
Same here, Jay, look forward to next time.

Speaker 2 (55:39):
We all know that fame is not the same as success,
and yet society makes it so easy to slip into
thinking there's no difference between the two. So today I
want to bring it back to what really matters, doing
good work, making an impact, feeling for fulfilled. The next

(56:01):
seven minutes are about your aims in life and how
to live with purpose. I'm Jay Shaddy. Welcome to the
Daily Jay. Let's begin by giving attention to our breath
and getting centered inhaling deeply in and slowly letting it out,

(56:29):
feeling your body reached towards the sky and fall lightly
back to Earth, drawing energy from the air and releasing tension.

(56:53):
Now let me ask you, have you ever heard the
song California Dreaming by the Mamas and the Pappas. How
about Good Vibrations by the Beach Boys or I Got
You Babe by Sonny and Cher. I would sing them
for you, but I want you to keep listening. Seriously, though,
if you've ever heard any of these three songs, then

(57:16):
you're familiar with the work of a legendary group of
studio musicians known as the Wrecking Crew. Studio musicians are
contractors who play instruments on albums by other artists. They're
often exceptionally skilled, and the members of the Wrecking Crew
were as good as it gets. They recorded hundreds of

(57:38):
top forty hits in the sixties and seventies, playing with
all kinds of bands, the Monkeys, the Birds, Frank and
Nancy Sinatra. Their impact on popular music is hard to fathom. However,
their work went largely unnoticed by the public. In fact,

(57:59):
I'd be willing to bet that before today you probably
hadn't heard of them. And here's why our society venerates
the frontman. We celebrate the rock god, the CEO, the MVP.
We idolize famous individuals so much we might believe that

(58:19):
real success equals stardom, that our effort is meaningless without
public recognition. But that couldn't be further from the truth.
Celebrity is not a prerequisite for impact, nor is it
a necessary ingredient for happiness, purpose or fulfillment. Not to

(58:41):
say there's anything wrong with fame. It can be quite
useful when channeled responsibly, and it can come as a
natural byproduct of creating something meaningful or memorable. But it's
much more important to focus on doing your best work
and acknowledging the payoff that comes from within. You should

(59:03):
take pleasure from knowing that you're doing well rather than
having other people think you are. Now, I'm not saying
you don't deserve to be appreciated for your efforts. The
Wrecking Crew may not have been a household name, but
in the recording industry they were held in high regard
and were compensated well for their services. What I'm saying

(59:27):
is that there's no shame in playing a supporting role
if that's what you enjoy or that's where you end up.
In the documentary Twenty Feet from Stardom, accomplished backup singer
Lisa Fisher says, I reject the notion that the job
you excel at is somehow not enough to aspire to.

(59:50):
So I'm giving you permission right here, right now to
celebrate your integral role, whether it's in the spotlight or not.
Because you don't have to be a superstar to do
good work. To make a difference to feel fulfilled and
to live a life of purpose. And now let's meditate

(01:00:14):
on that. Start by getting a little more comfortable wherever
you are, tuning into yourself and tuning into this moment
for the next two minutes. See if you can let
go of judgment and analysis, allowing yourself to sink in.

(01:00:45):
Today we're going to connect with some words of acceptance
and compassion towards yourself and others. You can repeat them
silently or just take them in. All I need to

(01:01:05):
do is love myself. Well, this will be enough. All
I need to do is love others. Well, this will
be enough. All I need to do is love my life. Well,

(01:01:36):
this will be enough. Let that marinate a bit. All
I need to do is love myself, well, this will
be enough. All I need to do is love others, well,

(01:02:04):
this will be enough. All I need to do is
love my life. Well, this will be enough. And now
let's open this up. I'd like you to reflect on

(01:02:27):
what success means to you and whether your definition could
use a little tweak. How are you currently making an impact?
How are you moving in the direction of a more

(01:02:48):
purposeful life. Hopefully the Daily Jay is helping you head
in that direction, and I'd love it if you shared
this program with someone who matters to you. I wish
you success and happiness in everything you do. I'm grateful

(01:03:10):
for you, and I hope to see you again tomorrow

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Jay Shetty

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