April 22, 2025 • 50 mins
Compare yourself to others. Think about death. Love your worry. Strange advice? Maybe. But leadership enthusiast Sebastien Page makes a powerful case for flipping conventional wisdom on its head. Drawing from positive, sports, and personality psychology, he shares bold, counterintuitive strategies to help you lead with more humanity, clarity, and impact.
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Working on Purpose is broadcast live Tuesdays at 6PM ET and Music on W4CY Radio (www.w4cy.com) part of Talk 4 Radio (www.talk4radio.com) on the Talk 4 Media Network (www.talk4media.com). Working on Purpose is viewed on Talk 4 TV (www.talk4tv.com).
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
The topics and opinions expressed in the following show are
solely those of the hosts and their guests, and not
those of W FOURCY Radio. It's employees are affiliates. We
make no recommendations or endorsements for radio show programs, services,
or products mentioned on air or on our web. No
liability explicitor implies shall be extended to W FOURCY Radio
or its employees are affiliates. Any questions or comments should
be directed to those show hosts. Thank you for choosing
(00:21):
W FOURCY Radio.
Speaker 2 (00:28):
What's working on Purpose?
Speaker 3 (00:29):
Anyway? Each week we ponder the answer to this question.
People ache for meaning and purpose at work, to contribute
their talents passionately and know their lives really matter. They
crave being part of an organization that inspires them and
helps them grow into realizing their highest potential. Business can
be such a force for good in the world, elevating humanity.
(00:49):
In our program, we provide guidance and inspiration to help
usher in this world we all want working on Purpose.
Now here's your host, doctor Elise Cortes.
Speaker 4 (01:05):
Welcome back to the Working in a Purpose program, which
has been brought to you with passion and pride since
February of twenty fifteen. Thanks for tuning in this week.
Great to have you. I'm your host, doctor Elise core Test.
If we have not met before and you don't know me,
I am a workforce advisor, organizational psychologist, management consultant, logo therapist,
speaker and author. My team and I at Gusto now
help companies to enlive and in fortify their operations by
(01:26):
building a dynamic, high performance culture and inspirational leadership activated
by meaning and purpose. And did you know that inspired
employees outperform their satisfied peers by a factor of two
point twenty five to one. In other words, inspiration is
good for the bottom line. You can learn more about
us on how we can work together at Gusto dshnow
dot com or my personal site atliscore Test dot com.
(01:47):
Before we get into today's program, I am thrilled to
announce that registration has been open for a fabulous new
conference for women for which I will service the MC.
It's called Thrive and twenty five and it's a jam
packed few days in Chicago June twenty fifth through the
twenty eighth, twenty twenty five, and its designed to develop
women as whole selves, from bolstering your mindset to your
financial acumen to leadership, to incorporating nature and art into
(02:09):
your life to raise consciousness and much more. Visit thrive
in twenty five dot com for information and to register.
Use my promo code of Gusto all Caps to gain
access to the free books and programs. I'll be gifting
registrants as well. Getting In today's program, we have with
us Sebastian Page, the head of Global multi asset and
Chief Investment Officer at tro Price. He has more than
(02:30):
two decades of leadership experience and has done extensive research
on positive sports and personality psychology. He currently oversees a
team of investment professionals actively managing over five hundred billion
dollars in assets under management. He's written too finance books
and appears regularly on CNBC and Bloomberg TV. We'll be
talking about his latest book, The Psychology of Leadership, Timeless
(02:53):
Principles to improve your management of individuals, teams, and yourself.
We'll talk specifically about the principle's discus us through the
lens of positive psychology, sports psychology and positive psychology. Sebastian
joins us from Baltimore, Maryland. Sebastian, A hearty welcome to working.
Speaker 2 (03:09):
On a purpose, Lise, thank you. I'm super excited. I
love doing podcasts. You mentioned CNBC interviews. I think the
podcasts are much more relaxed, much more farn.
Speaker 4 (03:21):
I'm so glad. I'm delighted to have you here. And
of course you know I love your ankset. Once upon
a time I could speak a little lu Francaise, so
I'm delighted to hear accent as well. But let's celebrate
this beautiful thing you brought into the world. Look at
this gorgeous piece of work, The Psychology of Leadership. It's
just beautiful. Sebastian. And as we were talking before we
got on air, you know, it takes a lot to
(03:41):
one create the book, and then once you write the
whole entire book and everything, it's all published, you're like
thirty percent done. Then it's you know, then you've got
to promote the thing. So so happy to have you
on to talk about your work.
Speaker 2 (03:53):
Thank you, Thank you for having me.
Speaker 4 (03:55):
Very welcome. Well let's let's just just di spell the
curiosity right out of the I'm sure listeners and viewers
are wondering why did this finance money management executive write
a book on self improvement in leadership? Did something happen
to you? Elise?
Speaker 2 (04:11):
You know that question. I've gotten it from about two
hundred agents who rejected represent me for the book. Thankfully,
I found a great agent and a great publisher. Look,
I was struggling at work. I was stressed, and I
was beating myself up for being stressed. I have a
high pressure job. But I kept thinking, I've been doing
(04:32):
this for over twenty years. Why am I so stressed?
So I started talking to a sports psychologist and the
first time I met him, he told me a story
and it changed how I view psychology. He walks me
through his best handball match. Ever, it turns out not
(04:53):
only easy APHD sports psychologist, he's also a pro athlete.
He's won forty national titles at the sport of handball.
At least this is like squash, but you hit the
ball with your hands. Now forty national titles. His name
is doctor Daniel Zimmitt. He starts telling me the story
(05:13):
of his best match. It was ten years ago. He
remembers everything about it. He remembers where the ball was
at every point in the match, it's emotional for him
at the point he recalls being on his knees and
making an impossible shot. You remember the sounds, everything, And
(05:36):
at least it's a complete leaddown because he then goes, oh, yeah,
I lost the other two points. I go, wait, you
lost the match and he goes yes. But to him,
as a sports psychologist, it was irrelevant. What was most
important to him was that he was playing a much
(05:58):
stronger opponent and that day on the court, he realized
that he'd improved his skills dramatically and that he was
able to play at a different level. So just think
about the mindset of someone who has forty national titles,
who's talking about their best match ever and they happened
(06:18):
to have lost the match and it almost doesn't matter.
At least this kicked off research in sports psychology and
what it's about, and then I hired him as a
consultant to help with the research. We went into positive psychology,
which is about what makes people thrive in the long run,
and then maybe the most fun personality psychology and not
(06:42):
just introversion, extraversion, other personality traits and how they drive
some of our behaviors and how we interact with each other.
The bottom line release is it started with that conversation,
ended up with fascinating research, and I've just come to
realize that business leadership self improvement. There are a lot
(07:07):
of findings in the research in those fields that have
yet to be explored, and some of them are counterintuitive.
Speaker 4 (07:15):
Well, of course, you know, as you might know about
my background, I'm delighted to have a conversation with you
as somebody who isn't necessarily immediately schooled in those topics
because my main education is in positive psychology and existential psychology.
I then taught for many years various things like social psychology,
(07:35):
personality psychology, So it's totally my damn So it's delightful
to see how you're getting so much value out of
it and applying it into your own life and your
own leadership. It's terrific.
Speaker 2 (07:46):
And to me, at least, I just kept reading about it,
learning about it and thinking, wow, why don't more people
know about this? Right?
Speaker 4 (07:55):
Right?
Speaker 2 (07:55):
Serious research over decades, and for example, work Marty Seligman
did on positive psychology and what types of long term
goals you should set for yourself to maximize your ability
to thrive over time. It's just a gold mine. And
we're all sitting here in business struggling with stress and
(08:17):
setting goals as leaders, and we underestimate what people like
you have done in research and it's kind of in
the drawer and we have to look at this and
use it.
Speaker 4 (08:31):
I completely agree, and it works, by the way, So
you brought it, Marty Suliman. I certainly am a huge
fan of doctor Seliman, and you write and some of
the core stuff you've drawn in your book is what
he calls his Perma model. So let's just quickly treat
that for our listeners and viewers, if you'll run through
that for us.
Speaker 2 (08:50):
I don't like acronyms. I'm a money management person. In finance,
we have all these acronyms, and then you go into technology,
we have all these acronyms everywhere. This one acronym, I
love it. I use it in the book. I've devised
chapters around it. Perma stands for positive emotions, engagement, positive
(09:13):
relationships meaning something you talk a lot about on your show,
and accomplishment, but in the sense of long term accomplishment.
And what Seligman says is every day we're all after
positive emotions and they're nice, you laugh, you get a
like on social media, you get a good glass of wine.
(09:35):
But unfortunately, some people aren't wired to experience positive emotion.
It goes all the way to clinical depression. But irma
is where the substance is. Irma is where your ability
to thrive long term comes in. These are the things
(09:56):
that feed your soul for the long run. I refer
to positive emotion as sugar highs and irma as the
proteins for the soul. So you might think, what does
this have to do with business and leadership? A lot,
a lot, because guess what a business is about relationships.
(10:17):
There's a crisis of meaning in corporate America. I love
your show and I've listened to prior EPs, and it's
so important to talk about meaning. I was at a
town hall today talking about what we do in our
business in retirement and the meaning of managing the money
to give people better retirements. So all these things in
(10:38):
positive psychology have huge applications in business, and at least
it comes down to goals as a leader, and you
don't have to manage people to be a leader. You're
a leader in your family, you're a leader in your church,
you're a leader. You lead by example. As a leader,
you're the ones setting the goals, because if you don't
(10:58):
set the goals, who.
Speaker 4 (11:00):
Will, right, right, And that's one of the things I
really appreciate about your book, Sebastian. There are many things,
but I also really like how you turn some of
these common ideas under side and then you treat them differently,
and I really really really love that. It's delightful. And
so you do spend a third of your book is
actually talking about setting long term goals based on positive psychology,
(11:22):
and you talk about everyday life and all this. But
can you say but you also then go on to say, though,
that it is said that measurable goals can become liabilities
if they make leaders blind to ethics and burnout. So
could you talk a little bit more about how leaders
can balance goal setting with maintaining well being and ethical standards.
Speaker 2 (11:40):
This is super important. It's part of my own journey.
Early in my career, I had what psychologists call goal
induced blindness. I was working non stop, traveling NonStop, I
was deprived, I was stressed, And there's a story in
the Psychology of I almost died from a mysterious infection.
(12:04):
I think because my body was completely run down, I
made a full recovery, but that was full on goal
induced blindness. When we talk about goal induce blindness, we
mean that you're so focused on your measurable goal, because
it's usually a measurable goal, you lose sight of other
things that matter, like your health in my case, or
(12:26):
your sense of ethics. And those companies will start cheating
just to reach their goals. Volkswagen famously d on their
emissions numbers, Wells Fargo created dummy accounts just to boost
their account numbers. So and here I need to pause
at least because measurable goals are great. They're actually incredibly helpful, useful, motivating.
(12:50):
You need them to run a business, and it helps
to lead organizations to use measurable goals. But to your
point about counter into it, if fine, goal induce blindness
is greatly underrated. At least, just to illustrate for our
listeners and viewers, this is a question I asked a
(13:11):
group of students three weeks ago, and I'm going to
ask you. I know what you're going to answer because
you studied positive psychology, but just rhetorically, I'm going to
ask you the same question, and our listeners can think
about what their answer would be. And this is about
goal induce blindness. I was in front of a thousand
money management students, finance students, and I offered them. I said,
(13:33):
if I show you a jar of gummies and there's
one hundred gummies, four of them are going to kill
you because they're poisoned. What would it take for me
to convince you to have one of those gummies to
eat it? And I started by offering a million dollars
and I went all the way to a billion dollars.
(13:54):
And those were students in their twenties. And what shocked
me was that maybe fifteen percent of the room had
their hand up at a million dollars. Wow, that is
goal induced blindness. And there's the reason why I picked
four gummans out of one hundred. Because in the psychology research,
Mount Everest debts are used as the prime example of
(14:17):
goal induced blindness. And at least if you want to
climb Everest, statistically, based on the historical data, you have
four percent chance of dying in the process. Those are
extreme examples of goal induced blindness. But if you don't
take time to think long term, to think in the
frame of positive psychology, you're going to chase money. Eighty
(14:40):
one percent of millennials, when asked, say they want to
be rich. That's their goal. It's not a bad goal,
by the way, go ahead, follow that goal, but there's
nuance that matters, and that's goal induced blindness.
Speaker 4 (14:55):
Completely align with that, dear friend already, my new friend,
let's a little bit. You mentioned the Permian model that
the RS for relationships prioritizing relationships in leadership, and it really,
of course completely echo the idea of in so doing
that you give ongoing, honest feedback to the people, such
that annual reviews or even semi annual reviews become completely
(15:18):
redundant and irrelevant. So can you talk a little bit
more about why this is so important, especially when it
relates to leadership through a lens of positive psychology.
Speaker 2 (15:30):
Look, we know from the Harvard study that relationships are
the number one factor that explains people's ability to thrive
over long periods of time. Being a positive psychology expert,
I'm sure you've followed the Harvard study. I love it
because there's no study like it. They've studied people over
(15:52):
eighty years, eight decades they've had multiple generations of researchers.
They constantly ask people throughout their lifetime, how are you doing?
Here's the questionnaire for you to fill, And then they
try to do statistical analysis. Are the people that are
making more money, that are climbing the social ladder, that
are healthy, happier than those that are losing their jobs,
(16:14):
that are sick, that are maybe going to jail And
there's no relationship, there's no connection to self reported happiness scores.
And the one factor that surfaced is the quality of
one's relationship in one's life. We talk about meaning at
work and engagement at work. If you have a bad
(16:36):
day at work, I'm going to bet that eight out
of ten times, it's a relationship issue. So that's why
relationships are important. Relationships mean collaboration. Companies are put together
or teams are put together to create a sum of
the parts that's bigger than individual efforts. So it's crucial
(16:57):
to your question on the feedback. Athletes love feedback. If
we go back to sports psychology. They want to coach
who tells them, okay, a tennis player, change your swing.
Do this. They love the live feedback. But somehow when
it comes to work. We all hate it. I was
the same myself. Why is that there's no real reason
(17:20):
why we.
Speaker 4 (17:20):
Should say how badly it's given? Usually?
Speaker 2 (17:23):
Yes? And uh, doctor Rock, who's a neuroscientist, doctor David Rock,
has done research on how to improve feedback. So part
of it at least is, as you said, give it
frequently enough on a live basis such that the year
end review becomes almost useless. Not useless because there's no feedback,
(17:43):
but useless because the feedback is known. But also the trick,
and this is from neuroscience to improve the feedback process
is to ask for it.
Speaker 4 (17:55):
Yes, right.
Speaker 2 (17:56):
What doctor David Rock found is and they had people
why to these machines and trying to measure their stress response,
their heartbeat, whether they were sweating in the feedback process,
and they just made this tweak ask for the feedback.
And that reduces the stress at least not just of
the person receiving the feedback, it reduces the stress of
(18:20):
the person giving the feedback. I totally understand because guess what,
I'm a people menagement people measure for twenty five years.
It's stressful to me to give feedback because I don't
know how you're going to react, and I care about
our relationship. Yes, if you go around that work and
just flip that, and as a leader you go and
ask for feedback and then people see you do it,
(18:42):
then they do it. You change the culture and the
whole pressure around it goes down significantly.
Speaker 4 (18:49):
I'm going to tell a story about how that I've
used that across my life. But let's grab our first break.
I'm your host, doctor Eleas Cortez. We've run the air
of Sebastian page These the head of the global multi
asset and chief investment officer at tro Price. We've been
starting this conversation talking about positive psychology and how it
can be used to improve individuals and management, management and leadership.
(19:10):
After the break, we're going to start talking about how
sports psychology can do the same. We'll be right back.
Speaker 3 (19:31):
Doctor Elise Cortez is a management consultant specializing in meaning
and purpose. An inspirational speaker and author, she helps companies
visioneer for greater purpose among stakeholders and develop purpose inspired
leadership and meaning infused cultures that elevate fulfillment, performance, and
commitment within the workforce. To learn more or to invite
a lease to speak to your organization, please visit her
(19:52):
at Elisecortes dot com. Let's talk about how to get
your employees working on purpose. This is working on Purpose
with doctor Elise Cortes. To reach our program today or
to open a conversation with Elise, send an email to
Elise alisee at eliscortes dot com. Now back to working
(20:17):
on Purpose.
Speaker 4 (20:23):
Thanks for stating with us, and welcome back to working
on Purpose. I'm your host, doctor Elise Cortes, as I
am dedicated to help and create a world where organizations
thrive because their people thrive are led by inspirational leaders
that help them find and contribute their greatness, and we
do business that betters the world. I keep researching and
writing my own books. So one of my latest came out.
It's called The Great Revitalization. How activating meaning and purpose
(20:43):
can radically in live on your business. And I wrote
it to help leaders understand what today's discerning workforce really
wants to give their best and stick around. And then
I provide twenty two best practices to help you build
that into your culture to give that to them. You
can find my books on Amazon or my personal site,
Eliscortes dot com if you are just now joining us.
My guest is Sebastian Page. He's the author of the
(21:03):
Psychology of Leadership, Timeless Principles to improve your management of individuals, teams,
and yourself. So the story really quick to just to
illustrate the power of asking for a feedback, which I
know you will appreciate because you are originally from Canada
and your first language is French. When I moved to
Spain in my mid twenties, I had learned French in
college and I had learned that basically, but then I
didn't know a whole lot about Spanish. So I just
(21:26):
immediately when I was out talking to people, I would say,
you know me, boy espaneur, you know, would you just
please correct me as I go? And the invitation of
just saying would you please correct me as I go?
To your point, I could go on and be comfortable
and confident because I've already asked for their feedback, and
they could easily say, well, hey, it's this tense, use
this tense, and it was just easy, right, So to
(21:47):
your point, both of us were enjoying the process. I
rapidly improved how I could speak Spanish in the later
Portuguese and everybody's having a good time. So an illustration
of how really soliciting the feedback is so much better
for everything. And I love the idea of baking that
into the culture absolutely.
Speaker 2 (22:04):
And what you describe is a little bit like being
coached in sports. And as I said earlier in the moment, yeah,
if athletes love feedback, and also the highest level athletes
in pretty much any sport have coaches and they seek
the feedback to get better, why don't we think about
it the same way at work?
Speaker 4 (22:26):
You know, it's interesting you say that just quickly, Sebastian.
I remember a time when not that distance, maybe ten
fifteen years ago really that I think people still thought of, oh,
she's got a coach. In other words, you're a problem child,
there's something wrong with you. And now what we see
is people recognize if you want to be really top
of your game, you need a coach. And I always
(22:47):
have at least two, by the way. So yeah, that
whole idea of how we interact, how leaders and business
people interact with coaches, as I think gratefully certainly turning
the corner quite substantially.
Speaker 2 (22:58):
And the new thing now sports and beyond is sports psychologists.
I have in the Psychology of Leadership the story of
Felix Boomgardner. Most people don't remember this. It was over
ten years ago. He flew up in a balloon to
the edge of space and d dived down, yes, twenty
(23:20):
four miles. He was free falling for four minutes. He
was wearing a special suit. He was the first human
being to break the sound barrier without being in an airplane.
And what most people don't know is this whole thing.
He was coached by a sports psychologist. And baseball teams
pro baseball teams eighty percent of them report having a
(23:43):
sports psychologist on staff, and I will guess that the
remaining twenty percent are just not telling you. And so
there's coaching. There's mental coaching too.
Speaker 4 (23:54):
No question. I had a doctor Nate Zenser on my
podcast some time ago and he, yeah, you know him,
he's a maze. So he's got a who book on
non confidence, and he coaches elite athletes and Olympic athletes,
and of course, being stationed at West Point, people that
are planning to go into the leadership ranks within the army.
If you need just a little bit of confidence, to
do any of those kinds of roles. So yeah, this
(24:16):
is really becoming quite quite nuanced, which of course I love.
Now you open the show Sebastian talking about stress, and
certainly part of what we're learning is there are ways
to be able to start to reduce our stress or
how we experience it through psychology and sports psychology in particular,
And I think it's interesting, and I certainly in line
you say that, you suggest that high performance isn't about
(24:38):
avoiding stress but knowing how to optimize it. Completely agree
and say.
Speaker 2 (24:43):
More well to me, actually was a big realization because
I was going about my high pressure job always always
trying to feel less stressed and beating myself up. I
should be a cool, calm and collected executive I've been
doing for twenty years. Yes, it's a stressful job, but
I need to bring my stress down down, down, down, down,
(25:06):
And talking with a sports psychologist kind of change my
thinking on this. This might be one of the biggest
findings for me in terms of self improvement in the
psychology of leadership. I would summarize it this way, lies
optimal performance does not happen at a zero stress level.
Another think about it is stress can increase performance. The
(25:29):
point after which you choke, you burn out. It's bad
for your health. But there's a curve, and the research
behind this goes back decades and it's absolutely fascinating. A
little bit quirky. The research started on Japanese dancing mice.
At least, I won't go into the scientific research of
(25:50):
how this started. It's in the psychology of leadership. But
I will say this, you can draw curve that maps
performance to your stress level. Now, if you're sports psychologist,
you're probably cringing right now, because sports psychologists are careful
with how they define stress. They reframe it with terms
(26:13):
such as arousal in the literature or activation. Part of
handling stress is reframing it. So I'm using stress as
a broad term here, deviating a bit from the scientific literature.
Here's the fascinating part of those curves. They're called Yerks
Dodson's curves. They're different for different tasks. So if you
(26:38):
go to sports, if you want to do powerlifting or sprinting,
you're going to reach peak performance at a very high
activation or stress level. You want your adrenaline to be
through the roof to do one hundred meter dash, or
to try a powerlifting task, if you're going to take
a math test, or if you're going to do archery,
(26:59):
you actually, we are going to perform optimally, not at
zero stress. You've got to care about it, prepare for it,
and get activated for it. But your peak of your
curve for that task is going to be at a
lower stress level. So imagine now you run a business
and you have a team, and you want to think
about optimal team performance. Well, it's the same thing. We
(27:22):
have tasks that are simple, straightforward where you can put
a very aggressive metric. We're digging a ditch today. Everybody,
grab a shovel, let's go, let's be done in two hours.
Other tasks like research and development will be optimized at
a lower amount of pressure. I'm not going to go
(27:42):
to my research and development team and scream at them innovate,
innovate by tomorrow. It's unproductive. So but to me, it's
just so important to realize that Tim Ferriss, who's great author,
has said I like to quote him, embracing as a
superpower if you can reach that optimal point. And here's
(28:05):
one more thing, at least about those curves, they're different
for different people. Yeah, and so you have to learn
yourself where you can optimize your performance, and also you
can work on them. You can work on them, you
can increase your stress tolerance. At least. I talk about
(28:29):
Neil Armstrong in the book. Neil Armstrong was just remarkable.
Everyone knows about the moon landing. It famously went horribly wrong.
The module basically ran out of fuel, they lost connection
with Earth, they veered off course, and the computer wasn't working.
(28:51):
Armstrong took control of the module and lended it in
a different spot than they were supposed to, but handled it,
and the rest is part of human history. He famously said,
it's one small step for men, one giant leap for mankind.
The titbit behind that story is as an astronaut, he
(29:13):
was hooked to a heart rate monitor and for most
of the mission at least can you guess what his
heart rate was?
Speaker 4 (29:22):
Well, let's see, that was a difficult task, so one
hundred and eighty eight, So that would be.
Speaker 2 (29:31):
Very high stress, full adrenaline one hundred and eighty eight,
or full physical effort for a lot of people. I
can't even get mine to one hundred and eighty eight.
His heart rate for most of the mission was seventy five.
Speaker 4 (29:45):
Which was sometimes blood pressure.
Speaker 2 (29:47):
I guess, yeah, basically for most people there's some effect
with space, but for most people's arresting heart rate. It
did go to one hundred and fifty when he landed.
But here's someone who can handle high pressure situations, who
has built a stress tolerance. How did he do that? Repetition?
Repetition is huge, repetition and exposure. He was a jet
(30:11):
fighter pilot in the war. And also did you know that?
And also he was just wired that way. But you
can learn to move your own stress curve, which I
find fascinating. And you mentioned doctor Knight Sencer. His book
is about that visualization, Uh, you know, building your own confidence,
(30:35):
having a mantra and so on.
Speaker 4 (30:37):
Yeah, oh, this is so yummy. I knew we were
gonna have a great conversation, Sebastian. There's so much I
can extract out of you. Okay, So for just this
last bit on sports psychology, I would be remiss if
I didn't get you to talk about one of the
other things that you know that are counterintuitive that you
suggest we do address, and that is thinking about death
and working backward from your goal. We don't usually talk
(30:58):
about death in this society.
Speaker 2 (31:00):
It sounds morbid, but it goes back to Stoicism, which
is more philosophy than psychology. And the original title for
my manuscript was The End in Mind, and it was
a nod to Stephen Covey, who the most popular self
help self improvement book of all time, the Seven Habits
(31:24):
of Highly Successful People. One of the habits was begin
with the end in mind, think very long term. What
covie was saying was by doing that, you can figure
out what your values are, what you want to be
as a person, what you want to achieve in your lifetime,
what do you want to reflect on on your deathbed,
(31:47):
and that guides your values and then you bring it
back to the present and it helps you make decisions.
So that's awesome, and that's part of what I talk
about in the Psychology of Leadership. But the other thing, too,
is that when you set a long term goal, anything
becomes possible because you have the benefit of time, and
(32:07):
it just changes your perspective and to me, and to
the Stoics and to most people, when you take time
to think about this, thinking about the fact that, hey,
we're all going to die, one day. Have this ring
on my finger that has a little sign. It says
(32:28):
memento maori, which means remember you must die. It actually
is very soothing.
Speaker 4 (32:34):
I understand.
Speaker 2 (32:35):
What does it matter that I stub my toe on
the side of the bed right now? If you know
this is all cosmically a very long term experiment, then
you know we're all going to die one day. So
there's a way to reframe your thinking around this, thinking
long term, working backwards from there, building resilience around it,
(32:57):
and helping these long term perspectives guide your values and
day to day decisions.
Speaker 4 (33:03):
I love that to where that rings. Sebastian, you know
as a meaning and purpose woman. So you know, purpose
works in part because we are mortal beings that we
don't know when we're going to hit the excep ramp.
And so the older we get, often especially I can
put myself in this camp, the more fixated we can
get on the things that we want to make happen
in our lives because we know that we don't get forever.
(33:24):
And it's a tremendous It gives us tremendous clarity, tremendous focus,
tremendous energy and motivation. So I'm with you on embracing
this death thing.
Speaker 2 (33:36):
I guess we're taking a for maybe for some of
our listeners a morbid turned but it's really a different
frame of mind, and it's I find it a positive thing.
It is.
Speaker 4 (33:47):
It certainly is positive for me. Let's let our listeners
and viewers reflect on that for just a moment see
where they can find the positive piece of that. I'm
your host, Doctor Really's Cortez. We're on the air with
Sebastian Page, the head of Global Multi ass and chief
investment officer at tro Price. We've been talking a bit
about how we can use sports psychology to improve our
own experience of life and also our effectiveness at leadership.
(34:09):
After the rik, we're going to talk about how we
can do that with personality psychology. We'll be right back.
Speaker 3 (34:30):
Doctor Elise Cortez is a management consultant specializing in meaning
and purpose. An inspirational speaker and author, she helps companies
visioneer for greater purpose among stakeholders and develop purpose inspired
leadership and meaning infused cultures that elevate fulfillment, performance, and
commitment within the workforce. To learn more or to invite
a lease to speak to your organization, please visit her
(34:52):
at elisecortes dot com. Let's talk about how to get
your employees working on purpose. This is working on Purpose
with doctor Elise Cortes. To reach our program today or
to open a conversation with Elise, send an email to
Elise alisee at elisecortes dot com. Now back to working
(35:16):
on Purpose.
Speaker 4 (35:21):
Thanks for stating with us, and welcome back to working
on Purpose. I'm your host, doctor Elise Cortes. I mentioned
in the last break that one of my books came out,
The Great Vitalization. What I did for you is I
created a very simple three page assessment that's on my
website gustodashnow dot com that you can download and it
will help you understand the extent to which your current
culture is meeting the needs of today's discerning workforce. If
(35:42):
you are just now joining us, my guest is Sebastian Paige,
the author of the Psychology of Leadership Timeless Principles to
improve your management of individuals, teams, and yourself. So for
this last section here, of course, I am, as I
mentioned already already very steeped in personality psychology. But let's
start with this simple aspect of you talk about, you know,
(36:03):
the Big five personality theory for those people who have
not been exposed to it. If you could just quickly
introduce the five elements of.
Speaker 2 (36:08):
That absolutely, and I'll do a little bit more. I'll
tell you where I stand on each of these traits,
and if your game at least not to put you on.
Speaker 4 (36:19):
The spot, I'm in. I'm in.
Speaker 2 (36:20):
I'm in as well. So the first one is openness
to experience. If you score high on this trade, you
like to try new things. You're the person who never
wants to go to the same restaurant twice, and you
like novelty. You get bored easily. If you're low in
openness to experience, you're comfortable with routine, repetitive. I eat
(36:42):
the same salad every day, so for lunch, I'm probably
on the lower side in openness to experience.
Speaker 4 (36:50):
At least I'm on the very high side.
Speaker 2 (36:53):
Awesome, So you're maybe your listener is going to get
to know you a little bit more today. I actually
have my score results in the third part of the
book in more details.
Speaker 4 (37:04):
The second trade I appreciate, by the way, I want
to just I want to celebrate that you did that
because I think it's it's authentic, it's open, it's honest,
and it lets us into your world. I really liked
that you did that.
Speaker 2 (37:16):
Thank you, Thank you. Second trade is conscientiousness. So if
you're neat, organized on time, you score high in conscientiousness.
If you're creative, a little bit loose with your deadlines,
you're comfortable with incomplete solutions, which, by the way, is
a great thing to do in business sometimes because you
(37:37):
don't have time to analyze everything is very different from
academia in that way. So I scored in the book
you'll see very high in conscientiousness. What by you elise,
middle of the road middle And by the way, as
we're saying this, I think it's important to use the
usual disclaimer. Only about forty percent of your personality traits
(37:59):
are inherited or genetically linked, and so they can change
based on the situation. They can change over time. You
can even change your personality if you want to work
on it. That's I think an important disclaimer. But the
traits just generally describe how you behave in most situations.
(38:19):
Extraversion we all know, right if you're an extrovert. You
get energy from going to social events, and you like
being around people, you tend to like to speak up,
and introverts would be the other side of that scale.
I'm actually in the middle here and in most situations
I'm on the introverted side.
Speaker 4 (38:40):
Would mind just the opposite. I'm also an ambrovert and
sit more in the middle, but more just slightly skewed
to the extroverted side. And one other thing to add that,
I think a lot of listeners and viewers don't know
about personal psychology for the introversion extraversion realm is another
part of that is how you handle sensation and what
(39:04):
I'm a what's the word I'm looking for, emulation how
you handle stimulation. So introverts, i mean, you know, can
be really really rigged out by a lot of stimulation,
and extroverts can handle a lot of stimulation. And that's
I think a really important distinction that doesn't usually get
surfaced when we talk about introversion and extraversion.
Speaker 2 (39:22):
A good point. The next one is interesting is agreeableness.
So if you're high in agreeableness, you tend to be
maybe a people pleaser, you like to agree with people,
uncomfortable being the devil's advocate. And then the opposite would
be being low agreeableness would be more being more disagreeable.
(39:44):
By the way in the psychology of leadership, I put
I kind of made it up based on what we
know about the celebrities. I put celebrities on both sides.
Speaker 4 (39:53):
So I like that.
Speaker 2 (39:54):
Actually, yeah, But for me for agreeableness this one and
I was very vulnerable and transparent in the book, I
scored low and agreeableness, and at least I disagreed with
the results.
Speaker 4 (40:13):
A bit of a I did.
Speaker 2 (40:15):
But actually I ended up taking another test to double check,
and I've had to come around to the idea that
I score somewhat low in agreeableness. I've had a life
that I would describe involving research and intellectual debates, and
maybe after twenty years of doing that, you dis develop
(40:37):
traits where you're comfortable in a respectful, trustful way, but
disagreeing with people and kind of you build a reflex
in academia, that's kind of the case for a lot
of people. So putting you on the spot again ales. Well.
Speaker 4 (40:55):
What's interesting is it's evolved a bit over time as
I've grown as a person. It used to be much higher.
My agreeableness now it's it's more like you know, in
like the eighty five or so sort of realm, and
so I have learned and I like how you put
forth the idea that this is some disagreeableness is essential
to be an effective leader. And that's come as I've
(41:15):
been more discerning in my thought leadership and where do
I agree with this and where do I disagree with that?
So it's its definitely evolved, but today it's about eighty
five percent.
Speaker 2 (41:25):
So we're different in that way. And then neuroticism is
do you tend to get nervous anxious, especially anticipating the future?
I score high. I think it's part of how I perform,
and that's why I studied the implications of stress from sports,
psychology and business and life. So I have to admit
(41:45):
I score fairly high.
Speaker 4 (41:47):
And I'm also pretty low on that one as well,
and I understand and I like how, and so I
want to get through as many as as we can,
because again, once again in this part of your book,
you're turning some standard sort of accepted ideas on their heads,
and that's one of them is to be able where
can we actually when does it make sense to lean
into our neuroticism, so and worry a little bit. Okay,
(42:10):
so let's take as many as we can here. I
got to start with the introversion extroversion thing, and I
really have found this in my own work Sebastian, where
you talk about, of course reading the room and to
call on the introverts, because this is really about getting
the best out of everybody, and it's not the most
extroverted person that has the best ideas per se. I
love Susan Kaine's book on an Introversion. I read it
(42:30):
as well. So let's talk a little bit about why
it's so important to call on the introverts and how
we can do so effectively.
Speaker 2 (42:38):
Introverts tend to be quite thoughtful about what they want
to contribute. In practice, when I call on someone who's
more introverted, who's been more quiet in the meeting, I
get the best.
Speaker 4 (42:53):
Inside absolutely right spot on.
Speaker 2 (42:56):
Because talk about contorintuitive findings. Introverts make good leaders, and
most of my career I thought to be a good
leader you need to be a good communicator, and to
a certain extent that's true, but as you climb the ladder,
listening becomes the skill you need as a leader way
(43:19):
more important than your quick quality of your communication style.
It's listening that makes you a better leader. Very counterintuitive
for a lot of leaders, and this is what introverts get, right,
So at least what does it mean in practice in
a meeting? I talk about the pivot method in the
(43:41):
psychology of leadership and I use it in my own
leadership meetings. When an extrovert is dominating the conversation, there's
a polite way to interrupt them, because if you don't,
by the way, and if you're too agreeable and you
can interrupt, the rest of the room is not going
to be happy with you at the leader that's right.
(44:03):
So the polite way is you interrupt, but you then
reflect back what they were saying. So, Paul, you were
saying XYZ. So you're showing the room that what they
were talking about is important. You're showing them that you
were paying attention to what they were talking about, and
(44:23):
that takes a lot of the tension out of the interruption.
Then you turn to the introvert and say, Mary, you've
been listening, what do you think? And this is just
just pivot by reflecting first on what the extrovert was
talking about. Is really helpful. The other one is one
over and at least ann is the number of people
(44:45):
in the meeting. We are having a meeting. Now there's
two of us. One over two means fifty percent means
each of us should This is a different format. I'm
talking more today because an interview in a meeting, you
would say we should each contribute fifty percent. If there's
ten people and equals ten, one over ten, everybody should
contribute equally ten percent. I often remind my team, we're
(45:09):
going to seek to go towards one over. If you're
too quiet, you got to contribute more. If you're dominating
the airtime, you got to contribute a little bit less.
Speaker 4 (45:20):
Yeah, I found gold and there's such and I've learned
so much about how to engage interprets in a very
make it safe for them, and so then when they're
ready to engage, so so so important. Okay, we're close
to being out of time here, So let's talk about
something that we haven't actually hit already in your introduction
of the ocean. Here, let's talk about, just for grins
(45:42):
and giggles, how can we cultivate the positive side of
conscientiousness eating our vegetables and having good habits habits.
Speaker 2 (45:50):
Habits is the answer. As I said earlier, you can
change your personality, you can become more conscientious. Go back
to James Clear bestseller Atomic Habits or Charles Dohigg's research.
Small habits, when done consistently over time, amount to giant results,
(46:14):
meaningful results. At least you publish books. That's the best example.
You don't sit down and write a book. It's small
writing habit that over time amounts to something awesome. That
is the key to becoming more conscientious. And the research
behind it, especially from Charles Dohig, you need a queue,
(46:35):
then the habit, and then the reward, and the reward
can be anything. So for me, for writing, the queue
was basically, it's Saturday morning, I need to write. That's
the queue. I have a schedule. That's my cueue. And
the habit was writing, and then the reward very simply.
I'd got to spreadsheet and write the number of words
I wrote, and to me was satisfying to see those
(46:56):
numbers line up and add up. You habit reward. Small
habits lead to big results if applied consistently over time.
And by the way, bad habits very bad results if
you keep them up over time. Smoking every day will
lead to a pretty bad result over time, likely lung cancer. Right,
(47:19):
you want to observe your habits and tweak them up
and down, good and bad.
Speaker 4 (47:24):
I like very much how you talk about keeping track
of your what you did as well, so you can
actually really see the progress over time. I think that's
an essential part of what you're talking about here, to
cultivate conscientiousness. So we did it, Sebastian. It goes by
so very fast. You know that this show is listening
to by people around the world who are tuning in
for various reasons. Sometimes they're tuning in to get specific
(47:46):
subject matter expertise from the guest. Oftentimes it's about becoming
a better leader themselves, or to becoming a better business leader.
What would you like to leave them with today.
Speaker 2 (47:58):
Think long time, embrace stress up to an optimal point,
and enjoy the ride.
Speaker 4 (48:11):
Fantastic way to finish, Sebastian. I'm delighted to know you
and thank you for making yourself even more conscientious to
get this book out into the world and then getting
out and about and having conversations with people like me
so we know about it. It's a delight to know you.
Speaker 2 (48:24):
Thank you, Lise. This was a lot of fun.
Speaker 4 (48:27):
Listeners and viewers. You are going to want to learn
more about Sebastian Page, the work that he does at
turo Price, his various articles on finance or leadership, and
his books, including the latest one, The Psychology of Leadership.
You can start by visiting his website Psychologyoleadership dot net.
He is also on LinkedIn. Last week, we were on
the area with Christopher and Christopher Wong, Michael Sent and
(48:48):
Jennifer Tosti Charus talking about their new book The Meaning
and Purpose of Work and interdis Disciplinary Framework for considering
what Work is for We three researchers got to it
to two deeply on the meaning of work, including one
model which puts forth most of us relate to a
job as our work as either a job, a career,
or a calling, each with pros and cons. If you're
(49:09):
interested in meaning, this is one you don't want to miss.
Next week, we'll be on the air with Brian Cunningham,
who began his career as a parking lot attendant and
rose to CEO, talking about his work in book Leadership
The Universal Principles, which at its core begins with your
awareness and its relationship to what he calls your awareness
quotient as a foundation for your leadership journey. We'll go
(49:30):
on to discuss how to apply this projectal understanding to
your journey through the developmental progression of your service as
a leader. See you then, remember that work is one
of the best adventures and means of realizing our potential
and making the impact with crave and can give us
the opportunity to do business in a way that betters
the world. So let's work on Purpose.
Speaker 3 (49:50):
We hope you've enjoyed this week's program. Be sure to
tune into Working on Purpose featuring your host, doctor Elise Cortes,
each week on W four CY. Together we'll create a
world where business operates conscientiously, leadership inspires and passion performance,
and employees are fulfilled in work that provides the meaning
and purpose they crave. See you there, Let's work on Purpose.
The topics and opinions expressed in the following show are
solely those of the hosts and their guests, and not
those of W FOURCY Radio. It's employees are affiliates. We
make no recommendations or endorsements for radio show programs, services,
or products mentioned on air or on our web. No
liability explicitor implies shall be extended to W FOURCY Radio
or its employees are affiliates. Any questions or comments should
be directed to those show hosts. Thank you for choosing
(00:21):
W FOURCY Radio.
Speaker 2 (00:28):
What's working on Purpose?
Speaker 3 (00:29):
Anyway? Each week we ponder the answer to this question.
People ache for meaning and purpose at work, to contribute
their talents passionately and know their lives really matter. They
crave being part of an organization that inspires them and
helps them grow into realizing their highest potential. Business can
be such a force for good in the world, elevating humanity.
(00:49):
In our program, we provide guidance and inspiration to help
usher in this world we all want working on Purpose.
Now here's your host, doctor Elise Cortes.
Speaker 4 (01:05):
Welcome back to the Working in a Purpose program, which
has been brought to you with passion and pride since
February of twenty fifteen. Thanks for tuning in this week.
Great to have you. I'm your host, doctor Elise core Test.
If we have not met before and you don't know me,
I am a workforce advisor, organizational psychologist, management consultant, logo therapist,
speaker and author. My team and I at Gusto now
help companies to enlive and in fortify their operations by
(01:26):
building a dynamic, high performance culture and inspirational leadership activated
by meaning and purpose. And did you know that inspired
employees outperform their satisfied peers by a factor of two
point twenty five to one. In other words, inspiration is
good for the bottom line. You can learn more about
us on how we can work together at Gusto dshnow
dot com or my personal site atliscore Test dot com.
(01:47):
Before we get into today's program, I am thrilled to
announce that registration has been open for a fabulous new
conference for women for which I will service the MC.
It's called Thrive and twenty five and it's a jam
packed few days in Chicago June twenty fifth through the
twenty eighth, twenty twenty five, and its designed to develop
women as whole selves, from bolstering your mindset to your
financial acumen to leadership, to incorporating nature and art into
(02:09):
your life to raise consciousness and much more. Visit thrive
in twenty five dot com for information and to register.
Use my promo code of Gusto all Caps to gain
access to the free books and programs. I'll be gifting
registrants as well. Getting In today's program, we have with
us Sebastian Page, the head of Global multi asset and
Chief Investment Officer at tro Price. He has more than
(02:30):
two decades of leadership experience and has done extensive research
on positive sports and personality psychology. He currently oversees a
team of investment professionals actively managing over five hundred billion
dollars in assets under management. He's written too finance books
and appears regularly on CNBC and Bloomberg TV. We'll be
talking about his latest book, The Psychology of Leadership, Timeless
(02:53):
Principles to improve your management of individuals, teams, and yourself.
We'll talk specifically about the principle's discus us through the
lens of positive psychology, sports psychology and positive psychology. Sebastian
joins us from Baltimore, Maryland. Sebastian, A hearty welcome to working.
Speaker 2 (03:09):
On a purpose, Lise, thank you. I'm super excited. I
love doing podcasts. You mentioned CNBC interviews. I think the
podcasts are much more relaxed, much more farn.
Speaker 4 (03:21):
I'm so glad. I'm delighted to have you here. And
of course you know I love your ankset. Once upon
a time I could speak a little lu Francaise, so
I'm delighted to hear accent as well. But let's celebrate
this beautiful thing you brought into the world. Look at
this gorgeous piece of work, The Psychology of Leadership. It's
just beautiful. Sebastian. And as we were talking before we
got on air, you know, it takes a lot to
(03:41):
one create the book, and then once you write the
whole entire book and everything, it's all published, you're like
thirty percent done. Then it's you know, then you've got
to promote the thing. So so happy to have you
on to talk about your work.
Speaker 2 (03:53):
Thank you, Thank you for having me.
Speaker 4 (03:55):
Very welcome. Well let's let's just just di spell the
curiosity right out of the I'm sure listeners and viewers
are wondering why did this finance money management executive write
a book on self improvement in leadership? Did something happen
to you? Elise?
Speaker 2 (04:11):
You know that question. I've gotten it from about two
hundred agents who rejected represent me for the book. Thankfully,
I found a great agent and a great publisher. Look,
I was struggling at work. I was stressed, and I
was beating myself up for being stressed. I have a
high pressure job. But I kept thinking, I've been doing
(04:32):
this for over twenty years. Why am I so stressed?
So I started talking to a sports psychologist and the
first time I met him, he told me a story
and it changed how I view psychology. He walks me
through his best handball match. Ever, it turns out not
(04:53):
only easy APHD sports psychologist, he's also a pro athlete.
He's won forty national titles at the sport of handball.
At least this is like squash, but you hit the
ball with your hands. Now forty national titles. His name
is doctor Daniel Zimmitt. He starts telling me the story
(05:13):
of his best match. It was ten years ago. He
remembers everything about it. He remembers where the ball was
at every point in the match, it's emotional for him
at the point he recalls being on his knees and
making an impossible shot. You remember the sounds, everything, And
(05:36):
at least it's a complete leaddown because he then goes, oh, yeah,
I lost the other two points. I go, wait, you
lost the match and he goes yes. But to him,
as a sports psychologist, it was irrelevant. What was most
important to him was that he was playing a much
(05:58):
stronger opponent and that day on the court, he realized
that he'd improved his skills dramatically and that he was
able to play at a different level. So just think
about the mindset of someone who has forty national titles,
who's talking about their best match ever and they happened
(06:18):
to have lost the match and it almost doesn't matter.
At least this kicked off research in sports psychology and
what it's about, and then I hired him as a
consultant to help with the research. We went into positive psychology,
which is about what makes people thrive in the long run,
and then maybe the most fun personality psychology and not
(06:42):
just introversion, extraversion, other personality traits and how they drive
some of our behaviors and how we interact with each other.
The bottom line release is it started with that conversation,
ended up with fascinating research, and I've just come to
realize that business leadership self improvement. There are a lot
(07:07):
of findings in the research in those fields that have
yet to be explored, and some of them are counterintuitive.
Speaker 4 (07:15):
Well, of course, you know, as you might know about
my background, I'm delighted to have a conversation with you
as somebody who isn't necessarily immediately schooled in those topics
because my main education is in positive psychology and existential psychology.
I then taught for many years various things like social psychology,
(07:35):
personality psychology, So it's totally my damn So it's delightful
to see how you're getting so much value out of
it and applying it into your own life and your
own leadership. It's terrific.
Speaker 2 (07:46):
And to me, at least, I just kept reading about it,
learning about it and thinking, wow, why don't more people
know about this? Right?
Speaker 4 (07:55):
Right?
Speaker 2 (07:55):
Serious research over decades, and for example, work Marty Seligman
did on positive psychology and what types of long term
goals you should set for yourself to maximize your ability
to thrive over time. It's just a gold mine. And
we're all sitting here in business struggling with stress and
(08:17):
setting goals as leaders, and we underestimate what people like
you have done in research and it's kind of in
the drawer and we have to look at this and
use it.
Speaker 4 (08:31):
I completely agree, and it works, by the way, So
you brought it, Marty Suliman. I certainly am a huge
fan of doctor Seliman, and you write and some of
the core stuff you've drawn in your book is what
he calls his Perma model. So let's just quickly treat
that for our listeners and viewers, if you'll run through
that for us.
Speaker 2 (08:50):
I don't like acronyms. I'm a money management person. In finance,
we have all these acronyms, and then you go into technology,
we have all these acronyms everywhere. This one acronym, I
love it. I use it in the book. I've devised
chapters around it. Perma stands for positive emotions, engagement, positive
(09:13):
relationships meaning something you talk a lot about on your show,
and accomplishment, but in the sense of long term accomplishment.
And what Seligman says is every day we're all after
positive emotions and they're nice, you laugh, you get a
like on social media, you get a good glass of wine.
(09:35):
But unfortunately, some people aren't wired to experience positive emotion.
It goes all the way to clinical depression. But irma
is where the substance is. Irma is where your ability
to thrive long term comes in. These are the things
(09:56):
that feed your soul for the long run. I refer
to positive emotion as sugar highs and irma as the
proteins for the soul. So you might think, what does
this have to do with business and leadership? A lot,
a lot, because guess what a business is about relationships.
(10:17):
There's a crisis of meaning in corporate America. I love
your show and I've listened to prior EPs, and it's
so important to talk about meaning. I was at a
town hall today talking about what we do in our
business in retirement and the meaning of managing the money
to give people better retirements. So all these things in
(10:38):
positive psychology have huge applications in business, and at least
it comes down to goals as a leader, and you
don't have to manage people to be a leader. You're
a leader in your family, you're a leader in your church,
you're a leader. You lead by example. As a leader,
you're the ones setting the goals, because if you don't
(10:58):
set the goals, who.
Speaker 4 (11:00):
Will, right, right, And that's one of the things I
really appreciate about your book, Sebastian. There are many things,
but I also really like how you turn some of
these common ideas under side and then you treat them differently,
and I really really really love that. It's delightful. And
so you do spend a third of your book is
actually talking about setting long term goals based on positive psychology,
(11:22):
and you talk about everyday life and all this. But
can you say but you also then go on to say, though,
that it is said that measurable goals can become liabilities
if they make leaders blind to ethics and burnout. So
could you talk a little bit more about how leaders
can balance goal setting with maintaining well being and ethical standards.
Speaker 2 (11:40):
This is super important. It's part of my own journey.
Early in my career, I had what psychologists call goal
induced blindness. I was working non stop, traveling NonStop, I
was deprived, I was stressed, And there's a story in
the Psychology of I almost died from a mysterious infection.
(12:04):
I think because my body was completely run down, I
made a full recovery, but that was full on goal
induced blindness. When we talk about goal induce blindness, we
mean that you're so focused on your measurable goal, because
it's usually a measurable goal, you lose sight of other
things that matter, like your health in my case, or
(12:26):
your sense of ethics. And those companies will start cheating
just to reach their goals. Volkswagen famously d on their
emissions numbers, Wells Fargo created dummy accounts just to boost
their account numbers. So and here I need to pause
at least because measurable goals are great. They're actually incredibly helpful, useful, motivating.
(12:50):
You need them to run a business, and it helps
to lead organizations to use measurable goals. But to your
point about counter into it, if fine, goal induce blindness
is greatly underrated. At least, just to illustrate for our
listeners and viewers, this is a question I asked a
(13:11):
group of students three weeks ago, and I'm going to
ask you. I know what you're going to answer because
you studied positive psychology, but just rhetorically, I'm going to
ask you the same question, and our listeners can think
about what their answer would be. And this is about
goal induce blindness. I was in front of a thousand
money management students, finance students, and I offered them. I said,
(13:33):
if I show you a jar of gummies and there's
one hundred gummies, four of them are going to kill
you because they're poisoned. What would it take for me
to convince you to have one of those gummies to
eat it? And I started by offering a million dollars
and I went all the way to a billion dollars.
(13:54):
And those were students in their twenties. And what shocked
me was that maybe fifteen percent of the room had
their hand up at a million dollars. Wow, that is
goal induced blindness. And there's the reason why I picked
four gummans out of one hundred. Because in the psychology research,
Mount Everest debts are used as the prime example of
(14:17):
goal induced blindness. And at least if you want to
climb Everest, statistically, based on the historical data, you have
four percent chance of dying in the process. Those are
extreme examples of goal induced blindness. But if you don't
take time to think long term, to think in the
frame of positive psychology, you're going to chase money. Eighty
(14:40):
one percent of millennials, when asked, say they want to
be rich. That's their goal. It's not a bad goal,
by the way, go ahead, follow that goal, but there's
nuance that matters, and that's goal induced blindness.
Speaker 4 (14:55):
Completely align with that, dear friend already, my new friend,
let's a little bit. You mentioned the Permian model that
the RS for relationships prioritizing relationships in leadership, and it really,
of course completely echo the idea of in so doing
that you give ongoing, honest feedback to the people, such
that annual reviews or even semi annual reviews become completely
(15:18):
redundant and irrelevant. So can you talk a little bit
more about why this is so important, especially when it
relates to leadership through a lens of positive psychology.
Speaker 2 (15:30):
Look, we know from the Harvard study that relationships are
the number one factor that explains people's ability to thrive
over long periods of time. Being a positive psychology expert,
I'm sure you've followed the Harvard study. I love it
because there's no study like it. They've studied people over
(15:52):
eighty years, eight decades they've had multiple generations of researchers.
They constantly ask people throughout their lifetime, how are you doing?
Here's the questionnaire for you to fill, And then they
try to do statistical analysis. Are the people that are
making more money, that are climbing the social ladder, that
are healthy, happier than those that are losing their jobs,
(16:14):
that are sick, that are maybe going to jail And
there's no relationship, there's no connection to self reported happiness scores.
And the one factor that surfaced is the quality of
one's relationship in one's life. We talk about meaning at
work and engagement at work. If you have a bad
(16:36):
day at work, I'm going to bet that eight out
of ten times, it's a relationship issue. So that's why
relationships are important. Relationships mean collaboration. Companies are put together
or teams are put together to create a sum of
the parts that's bigger than individual efforts. So it's crucial
(16:57):
to your question on the feedback. Athletes love feedback. If
we go back to sports psychology. They want to coach
who tells them, okay, a tennis player, change your swing.
Do this. They love the live feedback. But somehow when
it comes to work. We all hate it. I was
the same myself. Why is that there's no real reason
(17:20):
why we.
Speaker 4 (17:20):
Should say how badly it's given? Usually?
Speaker 2 (17:23):
Yes? And uh, doctor Rock, who's a neuroscientist, doctor David Rock,
has done research on how to improve feedback. So part
of it at least is, as you said, give it
frequently enough on a live basis such that the year
end review becomes almost useless. Not useless because there's no feedback,
(17:43):
but useless because the feedback is known. But also the trick,
and this is from neuroscience to improve the feedback process
is to ask for it.
Speaker 4 (17:55):
Yes, right.
Speaker 2 (17:56):
What doctor David Rock found is and they had people
why to these machines and trying to measure their stress response,
their heartbeat, whether they were sweating in the feedback process,
and they just made this tweak ask for the feedback.
And that reduces the stress at least not just of
the person receiving the feedback, it reduces the stress of
(18:20):
the person giving the feedback. I totally understand because guess what,
I'm a people menagement people measure for twenty five years.
It's stressful to me to give feedback because I don't
know how you're going to react, and I care about
our relationship. Yes, if you go around that work and
just flip that, and as a leader you go and
ask for feedback and then people see you do it,
(18:42):
then they do it. You change the culture and the
whole pressure around it goes down significantly.
Speaker 4 (18:49):
I'm going to tell a story about how that I've
used that across my life. But let's grab our first break.
I'm your host, doctor Eleas Cortez. We've run the air
of Sebastian page These the head of the global multi
asset and chief investment officer at tro Price. We've been
starting this conversation talking about positive psychology and how it
can be used to improve individuals and management, management and leadership.
(19:10):
After the break, we're going to start talking about how
sports psychology can do the same. We'll be right back.
Speaker 3 (19:31):
Doctor Elise Cortez is a management consultant specializing in meaning
and purpose. An inspirational speaker and author, she helps companies
visioneer for greater purpose among stakeholders and develop purpose inspired
leadership and meaning infused cultures that elevate fulfillment, performance, and
commitment within the workforce. To learn more or to invite
a lease to speak to your organization, please visit her
(19:52):
at Elisecortes dot com. Let's talk about how to get
your employees working on purpose. This is working on Purpose
with doctor Elise Cortes. To reach our program today or
to open a conversation with Elise, send an email to
Elise alisee at eliscortes dot com. Now back to working
(20:17):
on Purpose.
Speaker 4 (20:23):
Thanks for stating with us, and welcome back to working
on Purpose. I'm your host, doctor Elise Cortes, as I
am dedicated to help and create a world where organizations
thrive because their people thrive are led by inspirational leaders
that help them find and contribute their greatness, and we
do business that betters the world. I keep researching and
writing my own books. So one of my latest came out.
It's called The Great Revitalization. How activating meaning and purpose
(20:43):
can radically in live on your business. And I wrote
it to help leaders understand what today's discerning workforce really
wants to give their best and stick around. And then
I provide twenty two best practices to help you build
that into your culture to give that to them. You
can find my books on Amazon or my personal site,
Eliscortes dot com if you are just now joining us.
My guest is Sebastian Page. He's the author of the
(21:03):
Psychology of Leadership, Timeless Principles to improve your management of individuals, teams,
and yourself. So the story really quick to just to
illustrate the power of asking for a feedback, which I
know you will appreciate because you are originally from Canada
and your first language is French. When I moved to
Spain in my mid twenties, I had learned French in
college and I had learned that basically, but then I
didn't know a whole lot about Spanish. So I just
(21:26):
immediately when I was out talking to people, I would say,
you know me, boy espaneur, you know, would you just
please correct me as I go? And the invitation of
just saying would you please correct me as I go?
To your point, I could go on and be comfortable
and confident because I've already asked for their feedback, and
they could easily say, well, hey, it's this tense, use
this tense, and it was just easy, right, So to
(21:47):
your point, both of us were enjoying the process. I
rapidly improved how I could speak Spanish in the later
Portuguese and everybody's having a good time. So an illustration
of how really soliciting the feedback is so much better
for everything. And I love the idea of baking that
into the culture absolutely.
Speaker 2 (22:04):
And what you describe is a little bit like being
coached in sports. And as I said earlier in the moment, yeah,
if athletes love feedback, and also the highest level athletes
in pretty much any sport have coaches and they seek
the feedback to get better, why don't we think about
it the same way at work?
Speaker 4 (22:26):
You know, it's interesting you say that just quickly, Sebastian.
I remember a time when not that distance, maybe ten
fifteen years ago really that I think people still thought of, oh,
she's got a coach. In other words, you're a problem child,
there's something wrong with you. And now what we see
is people recognize if you want to be really top
of your game, you need a coach. And I always
(22:47):
have at least two, by the way. So yeah, that
whole idea of how we interact, how leaders and business
people interact with coaches, as I think gratefully certainly turning
the corner quite substantially.
Speaker 2 (22:58):
And the new thing now sports and beyond is sports psychologists.
I have in the Psychology of Leadership the story of
Felix Boomgardner. Most people don't remember this. It was over
ten years ago. He flew up in a balloon to
the edge of space and d dived down, yes, twenty
(23:20):
four miles. He was free falling for four minutes. He
was wearing a special suit. He was the first human
being to break the sound barrier without being in an airplane.
And what most people don't know is this whole thing.
He was coached by a sports psychologist. And baseball teams
pro baseball teams eighty percent of them report having a
(23:43):
sports psychologist on staff, and I will guess that the
remaining twenty percent are just not telling you. And so
there's coaching. There's mental coaching too.
Speaker 4 (23:54):
No question. I had a doctor Nate Zenser on my
podcast some time ago and he, yeah, you know him,
he's a maze. So he's got a who book on
non confidence, and he coaches elite athletes and Olympic athletes,
and of course, being stationed at West Point, people that
are planning to go into the leadership ranks within the army.
If you need just a little bit of confidence, to
do any of those kinds of roles. So yeah, this
(24:16):
is really becoming quite quite nuanced, which of course I love.
Now you open the show Sebastian talking about stress, and
certainly part of what we're learning is there are ways
to be able to start to reduce our stress or
how we experience it through psychology and sports psychology in particular,
And I think it's interesting, and I certainly in line
you say that, you suggest that high performance isn't about
(24:38):
avoiding stress but knowing how to optimize it. Completely agree
and say.
Speaker 2 (24:43):
More well to me, actually was a big realization because
I was going about my high pressure job always always
trying to feel less stressed and beating myself up. I
should be a cool, calm and collected executive I've been
doing for twenty years. Yes, it's a stressful job, but
I need to bring my stress down down, down, down, down,
(25:06):
And talking with a sports psychologist kind of change my
thinking on this. This might be one of the biggest
findings for me in terms of self improvement in the
psychology of leadership. I would summarize it this way, lies
optimal performance does not happen at a zero stress level.
Another think about it is stress can increase performance. The
(25:29):
point after which you choke, you burn out. It's bad
for your health. But there's a curve, and the research
behind this goes back decades and it's absolutely fascinating. A
little bit quirky. The research started on Japanese dancing mice.
At least, I won't go into the scientific research of
(25:50):
how this started. It's in the psychology of leadership. But
I will say this, you can draw curve that maps
performance to your stress level. Now, if you're sports psychologist,
you're probably cringing right now, because sports psychologists are careful
with how they define stress. They reframe it with terms
(26:13):
such as arousal in the literature or activation. Part of
handling stress is reframing it. So I'm using stress as
a broad term here, deviating a bit from the scientific literature.
Here's the fascinating part of those curves. They're called Yerks
Dodson's curves. They're different for different tasks. So if you
(26:38):
go to sports, if you want to do powerlifting or sprinting,
you're going to reach peak performance at a very high
activation or stress level. You want your adrenaline to be
through the roof to do one hundred meter dash, or
to try a powerlifting task, if you're going to take
a math test, or if you're going to do archery,
(26:59):
you actually, we are going to perform optimally, not at
zero stress. You've got to care about it, prepare for it,
and get activated for it. But your peak of your
curve for that task is going to be at a
lower stress level. So imagine now you run a business
and you have a team, and you want to think
about optimal team performance. Well, it's the same thing. We
(27:22):
have tasks that are simple, straightforward where you can put
a very aggressive metric. We're digging a ditch today. Everybody,
grab a shovel, let's go, let's be done in two hours.
Other tasks like research and development will be optimized at
a lower amount of pressure. I'm not going to go
(27:42):
to my research and development team and scream at them innovate,
innovate by tomorrow. It's unproductive. So but to me, it's
just so important to realize that Tim Ferriss, who's great author,
has said I like to quote him, embracing as a
superpower if you can reach that optimal point. And here's
(28:05):
one more thing, at least about those curves, they're different
for different people. Yeah, and so you have to learn
yourself where you can optimize your performance, and also you
can work on them. You can work on them, you
can increase your stress tolerance. At least. I talk about
(28:29):
Neil Armstrong in the book. Neil Armstrong was just remarkable.
Everyone knows about the moon landing. It famously went horribly wrong.
The module basically ran out of fuel, they lost connection
with Earth, they veered off course, and the computer wasn't working.
(28:51):
Armstrong took control of the module and lended it in
a different spot than they were supposed to, but handled it,
and the rest is part of human history. He famously said,
it's one small step for men, one giant leap for mankind.
The titbit behind that story is as an astronaut, he
(29:13):
was hooked to a heart rate monitor and for most
of the mission at least can you guess what his
heart rate was?
Speaker 4 (29:22):
Well, let's see, that was a difficult task, so one
hundred and eighty eight, So that would be.
Speaker 2 (29:31):
Very high stress, full adrenaline one hundred and eighty eight,
or full physical effort for a lot of people. I
can't even get mine to one hundred and eighty eight.
His heart rate for most of the mission was seventy five.
Speaker 4 (29:45):
Which was sometimes blood pressure.
Speaker 2 (29:47):
I guess, yeah, basically for most people there's some effect
with space, but for most people's arresting heart rate. It
did go to one hundred and fifty when he landed.
But here's someone who can handle high pressure situations, who
has built a stress tolerance. How did he do that? Repetition?
Repetition is huge, repetition and exposure. He was a jet
(30:11):
fighter pilot in the war. And also did you know that?
And also he was just wired that way. But you
can learn to move your own stress curve, which I
find fascinating. And you mentioned doctor Knight Sencer. His book
is about that visualization, Uh, you know, building your own confidence,
(30:35):
having a mantra and so on.
Speaker 4 (30:37):
Yeah, oh, this is so yummy. I knew we were
gonna have a great conversation, Sebastian. There's so much I
can extract out of you. Okay, So for just this
last bit on sports psychology, I would be remiss if
I didn't get you to talk about one of the
other things that you know that are counterintuitive that you
suggest we do address, and that is thinking about death
and working backward from your goal. We don't usually talk
(30:58):
about death in this society.
Speaker 2 (31:00):
It sounds morbid, but it goes back to Stoicism, which
is more philosophy than psychology. And the original title for
my manuscript was The End in Mind, and it was
a nod to Stephen Covey, who the most popular self
help self improvement book of all time, the Seven Habits
(31:24):
of Highly Successful People. One of the habits was begin
with the end in mind, think very long term. What
covie was saying was by doing that, you can figure
out what your values are, what you want to be
as a person, what you want to achieve in your lifetime,
what do you want to reflect on on your deathbed,
(31:47):
and that guides your values and then you bring it
back to the present and it helps you make decisions.
So that's awesome, and that's part of what I talk
about in the Psychology of Leadership. But the other thing, too,
is that when you set a long term goal, anything
becomes possible because you have the benefit of time, and
(32:07):
it just changes your perspective and to me, and to
the Stoics and to most people, when you take time
to think about this, thinking about the fact that, hey,
we're all going to die, one day. Have this ring
on my finger that has a little sign. It says
(32:28):
memento maori, which means remember you must die. It actually
is very soothing.
Speaker 4 (32:34):
I understand.
Speaker 2 (32:35):
What does it matter that I stub my toe on
the side of the bed right now? If you know
this is all cosmically a very long term experiment, then
you know we're all going to die one day. So
there's a way to reframe your thinking around this, thinking
long term, working backwards from there, building resilience around it,
(32:57):
and helping these long term perspectives guide your values and
day to day decisions.
Speaker 4 (33:03):
I love that to where that rings. Sebastian, you know
as a meaning and purpose woman. So you know, purpose
works in part because we are mortal beings that we
don't know when we're going to hit the excep ramp.
And so the older we get, often especially I can
put myself in this camp, the more fixated we can
get on the things that we want to make happen
in our lives because we know that we don't get forever.
(33:24):
And it's a tremendous It gives us tremendous clarity, tremendous focus,
tremendous energy and motivation. So I'm with you on embracing
this death thing.
Speaker 2 (33:36):
I guess we're taking a for maybe for some of
our listeners a morbid turned but it's really a different
frame of mind, and it's I find it a positive thing.
It is.
Speaker 4 (33:47):
It certainly is positive for me. Let's let our listeners
and viewers reflect on that for just a moment see
where they can find the positive piece of that. I'm
your host, Doctor Really's Cortez. We're on the air with
Sebastian Page, the head of Global Multi ass and chief
investment officer at tro Price. We've been talking a bit
about how we can use sports psychology to improve our
own experience of life and also our effectiveness at leadership.
(34:09):
After the rik, we're going to talk about how we
can do that with personality psychology. We'll be right back.
Speaker 3 (34:30):
Doctor Elise Cortez is a management consultant specializing in meaning
and purpose. An inspirational speaker and author, she helps companies
visioneer for greater purpose among stakeholders and develop purpose inspired
leadership and meaning infused cultures that elevate fulfillment, performance, and
commitment within the workforce. To learn more or to invite
a lease to speak to your organization, please visit her
(34:52):
at elisecortes dot com. Let's talk about how to get
your employees working on purpose. This is working on Purpose
with doctor Elise Cortes. To reach our program today or
to open a conversation with Elise, send an email to
Elise alisee at elisecortes dot com. Now back to working
(35:16):
on Purpose.
Speaker 4 (35:21):
Thanks for stating with us, and welcome back to working
on Purpose. I'm your host, doctor Elise Cortes. I mentioned
in the last break that one of my books came out,
The Great Vitalization. What I did for you is I
created a very simple three page assessment that's on my
website gustodashnow dot com that you can download and it
will help you understand the extent to which your current
culture is meeting the needs of today's discerning workforce. If
(35:42):
you are just now joining us, my guest is Sebastian Paige,
the author of the Psychology of Leadership Timeless Principles to
improve your management of individuals, teams, and yourself. So for
this last section here, of course, I am, as I
mentioned already already very steeped in personality psychology. But let's
start with this simple aspect of you talk about, you know,
(36:03):
the Big five personality theory for those people who have
not been exposed to it. If you could just quickly
introduce the five elements of.
Speaker 2 (36:08):
That absolutely, and I'll do a little bit more. I'll
tell you where I stand on each of these traits,
and if your game at least not to put you on.
Speaker 4 (36:19):
The spot, I'm in. I'm in.
Speaker 2 (36:20):
I'm in as well. So the first one is openness
to experience. If you score high on this trade, you
like to try new things. You're the person who never
wants to go to the same restaurant twice, and you
like novelty. You get bored easily. If you're low in
openness to experience, you're comfortable with routine, repetitive. I eat
(36:42):
the same salad every day, so for lunch, I'm probably
on the lower side in openness to experience.
Speaker 4 (36:50):
At least I'm on the very high side.
Speaker 2 (36:53):
Awesome, So you're maybe your listener is going to get
to know you a little bit more today. I actually
have my score results in the third part of the
book in more details.
Speaker 4 (37:04):
The second trade I appreciate, by the way, I want
to just I want to celebrate that you did that
because I think it's it's authentic, it's open, it's honest,
and it lets us into your world. I really liked
that you did that.
Speaker 2 (37:16):
Thank you, Thank you. Second trade is conscientiousness. So if
you're neat, organized on time, you score high in conscientiousness.
If you're creative, a little bit loose with your deadlines,
you're comfortable with incomplete solutions, which, by the way, is
a great thing to do in business sometimes because you
(37:37):
don't have time to analyze everything is very different from
academia in that way. So I scored in the book
you'll see very high in conscientiousness. What by you elise,
middle of the road middle And by the way, as
we're saying this, I think it's important to use the
usual disclaimer. Only about forty percent of your personality traits
(37:59):
are inherited or genetically linked, and so they can change
based on the situation. They can change over time. You
can even change your personality if you want to work
on it. That's I think an important disclaimer. But the
traits just generally describe how you behave in most situations.
(38:19):
Extraversion we all know, right if you're an extrovert. You
get energy from going to social events, and you like
being around people, you tend to like to speak up,
and introverts would be the other side of that scale.
I'm actually in the middle here and in most situations
I'm on the introverted side.
Speaker 4 (38:40):
Would mind just the opposite. I'm also an ambrovert and
sit more in the middle, but more just slightly skewed
to the extroverted side. And one other thing to add that,
I think a lot of listeners and viewers don't know
about personal psychology for the introversion extraversion realm is another
part of that is how you handle sensation and what
(39:04):
I'm a what's the word I'm looking for, emulation how
you handle stimulation. So introverts, i mean, you know, can
be really really rigged out by a lot of stimulation,
and extroverts can handle a lot of stimulation. And that's
I think a really important distinction that doesn't usually get
surfaced when we talk about introversion and extraversion.
Speaker 2 (39:22):
A good point. The next one is interesting is agreeableness.
So if you're high in agreeableness, you tend to be
maybe a people pleaser, you like to agree with people,
uncomfortable being the devil's advocate. And then the opposite would
be being low agreeableness would be more being more disagreeable.
(39:44):
By the way in the psychology of leadership, I put
I kind of made it up based on what we
know about the celebrities. I put celebrities on both sides.
Speaker 4 (39:53):
So I like that.
Speaker 2 (39:54):
Actually, yeah, But for me for agreeableness this one and
I was very vulnerable and transparent in the book, I
scored low and agreeableness, and at least I disagreed with
the results.
Speaker 4 (40:13):
A bit of a I did.
Speaker 2 (40:15):
But actually I ended up taking another test to double check,
and I've had to come around to the idea that
I score somewhat low in agreeableness. I've had a life
that I would describe involving research and intellectual debates, and
maybe after twenty years of doing that, you dis develop
(40:37):
traits where you're comfortable in a respectful, trustful way, but
disagreeing with people and kind of you build a reflex
in academia, that's kind of the case for a lot
of people. So putting you on the spot again ales. Well.
Speaker 4 (40:55):
What's interesting is it's evolved a bit over time as
I've grown as a person. It used to be much higher.
My agreeableness now it's it's more like you know, in
like the eighty five or so sort of realm, and
so I have learned and I like how you put
forth the idea that this is some disagreeableness is essential
to be an effective leader. And that's come as I've
(41:15):
been more discerning in my thought leadership and where do
I agree with this and where do I disagree with that?
So it's its definitely evolved, but today it's about eighty
five percent.
Speaker 2 (41:25):
So we're different in that way. And then neuroticism is
do you tend to get nervous anxious, especially anticipating the future?
I score high. I think it's part of how I perform,
and that's why I studied the implications of stress from sports,
psychology and business and life. So I have to admit
(41:45):
I score fairly high.
Speaker 4 (41:47):
And I'm also pretty low on that one as well,
and I understand and I like how, and so I
want to get through as many as as we can,
because again, once again in this part of your book,
you're turning some standard sort of accepted ideas on their heads,
and that's one of them is to be able where
can we actually when does it make sense to lean
into our neuroticism, so and worry a little bit. Okay,
(42:10):
so let's take as many as we can here. I
got to start with the introversion extroversion thing, and I
really have found this in my own work Sebastian, where
you talk about, of course reading the room and to
call on the introverts, because this is really about getting
the best out of everybody, and it's not the most
extroverted person that has the best ideas per se. I
love Susan Kaine's book on an Introversion. I read it
(42:30):
as well. So let's talk a little bit about why
it's so important to call on the introverts and how
we can do so effectively.
Speaker 2 (42:38):
Introverts tend to be quite thoughtful about what they want
to contribute. In practice, when I call on someone who's
more introverted, who's been more quiet in the meeting, I
get the best.
Speaker 4 (42:53):
Inside absolutely right spot on.
Speaker 2 (42:56):
Because talk about contorintuitive findings. Introverts make good leaders, and
most of my career I thought to be a good
leader you need to be a good communicator, and to
a certain extent that's true, but as you climb the ladder,
listening becomes the skill you need as a leader way
(43:19):
more important than your quick quality of your communication style.
It's listening that makes you a better leader. Very counterintuitive
for a lot of leaders, and this is what introverts get, right,
So at least what does it mean in practice in
a meeting? I talk about the pivot method in the
(43:41):
psychology of leadership and I use it in my own
leadership meetings. When an extrovert is dominating the conversation, there's
a polite way to interrupt them, because if you don't,
by the way, and if you're too agreeable and you
can interrupt, the rest of the room is not going
to be happy with you at the leader that's right.
(44:03):
So the polite way is you interrupt, but you then
reflect back what they were saying. So, Paul, you were
saying XYZ. So you're showing the room that what they
were talking about is important. You're showing them that you
were paying attention to what they were talking about, and
(44:23):
that takes a lot of the tension out of the interruption.
Then you turn to the introvert and say, Mary, you've
been listening, what do you think? And this is just
just pivot by reflecting first on what the extrovert was
talking about. Is really helpful. The other one is one
over and at least ann is the number of people
(44:45):
in the meeting. We are having a meeting. Now there's
two of us. One over two means fifty percent means
each of us should This is a different format. I'm
talking more today because an interview in a meeting, you
would say we should each contribute fifty percent. If there's
ten people and equals ten, one over ten, everybody should
contribute equally ten percent. I often remind my team, we're
(45:09):
going to seek to go towards one over. If you're
too quiet, you got to contribute more. If you're dominating
the airtime, you got to contribute a little bit less.
Speaker 4 (45:20):
Yeah, I found gold and there's such and I've learned
so much about how to engage interprets in a very
make it safe for them, and so then when they're
ready to engage, so so so important. Okay, we're close
to being out of time here, So let's talk about
something that we haven't actually hit already in your introduction
of the ocean. Here, let's talk about, just for grins
(45:42):
and giggles, how can we cultivate the positive side of
conscientiousness eating our vegetables and having good habits habits.
Speaker 2 (45:50):
Habits is the answer. As I said earlier, you can
change your personality, you can become more conscientious. Go back
to James Clear bestseller Atomic Habits or Charles Dohigg's research.
Small habits, when done consistently over time, amount to giant results,
(46:14):
meaningful results. At least you publish books. That's the best example.
You don't sit down and write a book. It's small
writing habit that over time amounts to something awesome. That
is the key to becoming more conscientious. And the research
behind it, especially from Charles Dohig, you need a queue,
(46:35):
then the habit, and then the reward, and the reward
can be anything. So for me, for writing, the queue
was basically, it's Saturday morning, I need to write. That's
the queue. I have a schedule. That's my cueue. And
the habit was writing, and then the reward very simply.
I'd got to spreadsheet and write the number of words
I wrote, and to me was satisfying to see those
(46:56):
numbers line up and add up. You habit reward. Small
habits lead to big results if applied consistently over time.
And by the way, bad habits very bad results if
you keep them up over time. Smoking every day will
lead to a pretty bad result over time, likely lung cancer. Right,
(47:19):
you want to observe your habits and tweak them up
and down, good and bad.
Speaker 4 (47:24):
I like very much how you talk about keeping track
of your what you did as well, so you can
actually really see the progress over time. I think that's
an essential part of what you're talking about here, to
cultivate conscientiousness. So we did it, Sebastian. It goes by
so very fast. You know that this show is listening
to by people around the world who are tuning in
for various reasons. Sometimes they're tuning in to get specific
(47:46):
subject matter expertise from the guest. Oftentimes it's about becoming
a better leader themselves, or to becoming a better business leader.
What would you like to leave them with today.
Speaker 2 (47:58):
Think long time, embrace stress up to an optimal point,
and enjoy the ride.
Speaker 4 (48:11):
Fantastic way to finish, Sebastian. I'm delighted to know you
and thank you for making yourself even more conscientious to
get this book out into the world and then getting
out and about and having conversations with people like me
so we know about it. It's a delight to know you.
Speaker 2 (48:24):
Thank you, Lise. This was a lot of fun.
Speaker 4 (48:27):
Listeners and viewers. You are going to want to learn
more about Sebastian Page, the work that he does at
turo Price, his various articles on finance or leadership, and
his books, including the latest one, The Psychology of Leadership.
You can start by visiting his website Psychologyoleadership dot net.
He is also on LinkedIn. Last week, we were on
the area with Christopher and Christopher Wong, Michael Sent and
(48:48):
Jennifer Tosti Charus talking about their new book The Meaning
and Purpose of Work and interdis Disciplinary Framework for considering
what Work is for We three researchers got to it
to two deeply on the meaning of work, including one
model which puts forth most of us relate to a
job as our work as either a job, a career,
or a calling, each with pros and cons. If you're
(49:09):
interested in meaning, this is one you don't want to miss.
Next week, we'll be on the air with Brian Cunningham,
who began his career as a parking lot attendant and
rose to CEO, talking about his work in book Leadership
The Universal Principles, which at its core begins with your
awareness and its relationship to what he calls your awareness
quotient as a foundation for your leadership journey. We'll go
(49:30):
on to discuss how to apply this projectal understanding to
your journey through the developmental progression of your service as
a leader. See you then, remember that work is one
of the best adventures and means of realizing our potential
and making the impact with crave and can give us
the opportunity to do business in a way that betters
the world. So let's work on Purpose.
Speaker 3 (49:50):
We hope you've enjoyed this week's program. Be sure to
tune into Working on Purpose featuring your host, doctor Elise Cortes,
each week on W four CY. Together we'll create a
world where business operates conscientiously, leadership inspires and passion performance,
and employees are fulfilled in work that provides the meaning
and purpose they crave. See you there, Let's work on Purpose.
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