E102 - Stoicism and Communication with Felipe Engineer-Manriquez - The Uncommon Communicator

Episode Transcript
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Felipe Engineer Manriquez (00:00):
You want to talk right down to?

The UnCommon Communicator (00:02):
us, and a language that everybody
here can easily understand.

What we got here is a failure to
communicate.

The UnCommon Communicat (00:24):
Welcome to the Uncommon Communicator
Podcast where we bringenlightenment to the topic of
communication.
I am so happy today to haveFelipe engineer Manriquez with
me from the EVFC show for thesecond time.
Welcome.

Thank you so much for having me on
the show.
James Super appreciate it.
Happy to wake up on a coldSunday to make this happen.
This was a show in the work.
So many times we we plunked itand it came back.
But I think we're even in abetter spot now with the topic
than we were when we first triedto schedule this and it's a
good reminder to everybodylistening to the podcast.

(00:59):
Like, if you can't adapt, whatare you doing?
Let's just adapt and beflexible.

And better outcomes can come from
that adaptation.
Because, I agree, I'm in abetter spot for this preparation
it's snowing outside today forus too, so it is a nice cold
Sunday morning to reflect andtalk about how stoicism affects
our communication.
This whole idea really cameacross when we were in our last
interview and you I brought up astoic quote which I love those

(01:28):
quotes and you said, hey, weshould talk about that, and that
that really has stuck with mefor the last time.
It's been months where Ithought we've got to touch on
this because the topic itself istimely, which is, as you dive
into stoicism.
There's so much that's tied tocognitive behavior theory or
training and and that type ofcognitive works that are going

(01:52):
on that go back, you know,thousands of years to the same
philosophy that people areapplying, and I think we can
apply it to construction.
Now you have a particular brandof stoicism that really
connects with you.
What is that?

Yeah, I mean the kind that I like is
obviously the journal for MarcusAurelius that was never
supposed to be published is myprime reader source.
And then I do watch a lot ofYouTube.
I do go to a lot of Universityof YouTube and I tend to lean
towards anything that'sattributed to Epictetus, who was

(02:28):
, like, in my opinion, one ofthe you know poster child for
what stoicism is, and even thewritings that we have from him
he never wrote down, whereasMarcus Aurelius we have the
journal written by his hand thathis servant was supposed to
destroy upon his death and hisservants like this is too juicy,
too good, I'm not letting thisgo.
And it became published later.

(02:49):
But with Epictetus it wasstudent of his, taking notes
trying to learn from the master,and Epictetus was a slave that
eventually freed himself.
So he lived.
He had lived as a slave and heeven talked about when he was,
when in during his time as aslave, even had his leg broken,

(03:09):
like he had one of his kneeskneecap busted by the slave
master, and how he turned thatthat incident to his benefit and
did not let the master havecontrol over him, even though
he's having his leg broken.
I just thought, wow, I probablycomplained too much.
I listened to that story asrecounted by one of his students

(03:30):
and just his determination tostay in the pocket, so to speak,
to stay in control of his mindand to stay in control of how he
was reacting, really resonatedwith me I had recently thrown
another book in there.
Victor Frankel wrote a bookcalled Man's Search of Meaning
and in that book Victor puts inand he was a concentration camp

(03:52):
survivor from World War II.
He talked about in the spacebetween stimulants and response,
which could be like nanosecondsor small seconds, we retain the
full control of how we're goingto react, even if it's only for
seconds.
And that just resonated with meand to me that's like the same

(04:13):
thing that Epictetus was talkingabout thousands of years
earlier.
And so that type of idea justweaving through history coming
out in different people, peoplediscovering different ways, I
thought how can I betterpractice this myself?
And so it's been given.
It's been really liberating.
So, like we work inconstruction, james and I've

(04:33):
been superintendent, a manager,a cost engineer, I've acted as a
paralegal for a decade onlitigation.
I mean I've done so many things.
I've helped people inaccounting back of house, front
of house, and now I work inproject delivery services for
the bull company that skits meonto many projects all over the
country, working on things fromlike high collaboration,

(04:56):
integrated project delivery,down to like you know, a hard
bid job, school project whereyou're spending bond money and
you've got tight deadlines forthe school.
So like this, the full gambit,and in all of that, this mindset
of being able to control howreact to the environment, has
been like just game changing forme.

(05:17):
And it's and I can't even it'sgoing to be hard to put into
words, but I'll do my, I'll domy best to use.
I believe in you, but like Iremember being younger in
construction and like somethingwould happen, like I was on a
job.
Case in point, let me give anexample of like when I did not
have the control of whathappened.
So I'm on a project.
It's a guaranteed maximum pricejob with fat, with allowances

(05:40):
and contingency to pay for everysin possible.
So it's and it's.
It's going to be fine, it'sgoing to finish on time.
But we're, we're getting to theend, we're in the final.
We were talking about punch listbefore the recording started.
This was just reminded me.
So we're getting into the punchlist phase and one of the
executives from the companycomes to the trailer to give us

(06:01):
a pep talk, right?
So again, if you, if you knowwhat's going on in the job, it's
going to be on time, it's got,it's going to finish with higher
than entry margin, so moreprofit than expected, so
everything's good.
So you're thinking this peptalk is probably going to be
like hey, good job.
No, it's just the opposite.
The pep talk was put.

(06:23):
I'm putting my knee on yourthroat, on each one of the
people on the project.
We were a general contractor onthis project.
The executive acted and spokein such a way that I would say
is parallel to having his kneeon our throats and putting
pressure on us at extreme leveland use phrases like don't have

(06:44):
this up, threatening, menacingtype of phrases, to quote
unquote motivate people tofinish strong.
Because we had, like, at thetime I think we were in the
final 90 days to cross thefinish line and they didn't want
people to relax because either,like I don't know what they
knew, like did, did we know thejob was going well or not.
I don't think I, actually Idon't think most staff knew that

(07:08):
the job was going well.
I was involved in change orders, so I had a lot more intimate
knowledge of where we were withthat and I remember, like, as I
was thinking, like everything'sfine, but this guy talking to us
like this made me feel shittyand I felt bad and I took that
bad feeling home and then overthe course all the way to the

(07:31):
end, like I never shook off,could not wash it off, couldn't
get it off, and I was and I wasthinking because I was allowing
myself to be perceived by othersand not perceiving myself when
I knew to be true.
I was giving away with myfriend calls, abdicating
responsibility for actual, real,honest, to goodness feedback.
I felt bad and it hadconsequences across my family

(07:54):
because someone was trying tomotivate me for their own, you
know, whatever their own ego,like they hadn't done anything
on this job for what I could seein three years.
They show up at the end, theyand then they did take all the
credit for the success of theproject because they quote,
unquote put this magic teamtogether and then it was.
It was later, same team, we'regetting an award for the project

(08:18):
internally and in just an easyconversation, somebody asked
like what was my involvement onthat job?
And I mentioned how I joined tohelp with change orders and I
used the word I, like I helpwith this, I help with that, and
then we were able to work withthe owner and, you know, get to

(08:41):
a spot where they had higher,high reliability and what their
costs were.
And then one of the people fromthe team turn around.
They were sitting in the roomin front of me.
He's dropping like a good youknow non communicating
contributor would be, andthey're just like stop saying I
I'm like I'm answer.
I said I'm answering thequestion.
Like they asked me what did Ido.
They didn't say what did yourteam do?

(09:02):
So I was answering in the mycontribution to this and I
remember like feeling shittierabout that.
I felt bad about thatinteraction and I'm thinking
like am I wrong to think?
And then I had to like do allthis analysis later and thinking
about this and I'm alsothinking like you know, that
person probably hasn't spentthree seconds thinking about
what they said.

(09:22):
They just heard me from theirperception taking credit for
something.
I was answering the questionlike I don't know what they
heard on the.
If they heard the persontalking to me about the first
question that they, that theyasked, kicked off the whole
thing.
So same project, multipleexamples where I'm not in
control, I'm not taking thesituation to my advantage and

(09:43):
the result for me was increasedsuffering, like I felt bad.
I had to talk about my poorwife had to listen to me talk
about this way too long, becauseif anyone knows like my wife
has to hear everything thathappens to me every day, this is
our.
This is our relationship, so youknow, she's very special, she's
an awesome listener, but it waslike it's not fair, it's like

(10:06):
nonsense, it's nonsense.
So that's the, that's thebefore.
I discovered so is a type ofthinking, just to give some
contrast.
And then afterwards, when I say, now that I can hear, I can
literally hear anything fromanyone, and then I will decide
how I'm going to react, if it'sgoing to bother me or not.
And it's not to say that likeif I was back in that situation

(10:26):
again, james, that I wouldn'tfeel bad, but I would not feel
bad for more than 60 seconds.
It's going to be really quick.
I'm going to feel what it is,I'm going to understand where
it's coming from, where thefeeling is, and then I'm going
to decide what am I doing withthis information?

And that's the real key there, too,
is you will feel it, you aregoing to hear it, and that's
part of the problem, is it is.
It does create that reaction ineverybody, but it's what you do
with it, and I have a similarexperience as well, too.
I wish I knew these things whenI was in my twenties.
It would have changed my wholelife, because it took me years
and years of pain of goingthrough.

(11:05):
What you just talked about isis an old school.
We're like we're always behind,like every job.
I finally said that at onepoint.
I'm like every job we havecannot be out of money, like
then we need to be bidding thisdifferently.
But that was their method ofmanagement is to hurry up and
get it done, to try to make moremoney, with that feeling bad
the whole time.
Instead of saying you're doinggreat, which I had several jobs

(11:28):
at the end it's like oh yeah, wedid great.
Like how did I not know thatfor four months of doing this
job, that we were doing great?
And they're like and then, ofcourse, there's no thank you,
because they did all themanaging that did it, and so
it's that mindset, and thatreally goes to have a couple of
stoic rules.
I don't know who wrote them.
There's so many different typesof rules and different orders,

(11:48):
so it's not like you can't go tothe book of stoic and find
here's rule number one, buthere's rule number one that I
found on the internet and it'saccept what you can and can't
control.
What's fits right into whatyou're talking about is you have
to accept the things that youcan't control and understand
those.
And that's a quote fromEpictetus that says this there's

(12:11):
only one way to happiness andthat is to cease worrying about
things which are beyond thepower of our will.
And I think those mindsets areimportant for us in construction
because there are so manythings that are outside of our
control and trying to be outsideof that and let them affect you
and this has been recent for mewhen you realize and take that

(12:33):
mindset that I'm not going tolet this affect me, then it was
all in my control.
I had a guy this last week.
He really gave me some bad newsand he's like, oh, sorry to use
, he goes.
I'll just be honest with youKind of told their situation,
they're having issues with theirPO system and he goes.
I am just sorry to ruin yourday, blah, blah, blah.
I'm not going to get this stuffuntil next week passes, date

(12:56):
that I needed them to get it.
And I said you're not ruiningmy day.
He's like what do you mean?
I'm like your circumstancesdon't ruin my day.
I'm not driven by your bad news.
I can plan on your bad news now, but your bad news is not going
to ruin my day.
And I wouldn't have said that20 years ago.
What do you mean?
So, yeah, it is a completedifferent mindset.

James on that note.
Like so, when people give mequote, unquote bad news or they
tell me something that theythink should ruin me or make me
feel like shit, it's amazingwhen you don't react the way
that that social culture,especially culture of Western
United States culture, dictatesyou should act and it creates
such like like just use anothermetaphor it's like you can see

(13:40):
the mental hamster literallyfall off the wheel and collapse
on the side.
You know, the brain just goeslike a record scratch and it
really throws people off.
They don't know how to react toyou and I think, because so
many people are, they used tolike doing that stuff and like
really stinging people like ascorpion with like negativity

(14:02):
when they don't get the effectthat they want from the venom of
those of the sting, like ithurts them, it causes them pain
and I'm just always like I feelbad for you.
I feel bad for you trying tohurt me and it's not.
It's not hurting you.
I, you have my sympathy.
I was like sometimes I'll evenbe a jerk and say in another
universe I do think about whatyou said.

The UnCommon Communicato (14:25):
That's something for me to.
I think I my personality wisehas been a lot like that in the
past, where I'm not overlyemotional about probably more
emotional now than I ever wasfor the last 50 years but in
because I think I'munderstanding myself a little
bit better than I did.
But a lot of it was stuff inthose feelings away and there's
times where I just didn'toverreact but and then I really

(14:46):
learned that overreacting nevergets you the the results that
you want.
So remaining calm and now I canmentally, I have a backup to
say why I can remain calm.
But looking back at it, there'sa couple of times where I had a
superintendent where I had thatI had that overact, a little bit
of upset because he would getmad at me for not reacting like
I didn't care.
I'm like there's nobody thatcares more about this job than

(15:09):
me.
So then I had to startportraying that to him because
that's that old school mentality.
I had to show him that I wasupset that he got defensive.
It's just, it's a weirdpsychology of that old school
thought of again same guy whowere always behind every job we
bid doesn't have any money in itand we need to work harder and
faster on every single one, butthat I had to act with him and I

(15:32):
won't do it anymore.
It's like, look, you're gettingthe all that I have, all the
time, and you're just not goingto get that reaction from me.

I think it's worth noting to the
listeners, like if you've justonly learned about stoicism in
this podcast, or you've Googledit once or twice, or you've seen
the, the Spock stoicism eems onthe Internet, where people who
practice stoicism are oftenportrayed as being unemotional.
That's a surface level scratch,and you've only you've only

(16:01):
looked at page one of the Googleresults.
If you go deeper into page twoand actually start to learn this
stuff, nowhere do the stoic sayyou're not going to be
emotional and it's quite theopposite, like it's, you get to
feel everything, but you, youguide, you're more aware of like
James is saying, like he's evenmore aware of, like what he
feels, and and you get to decidewhat you're going to do with

(16:23):
that.
I think that's a nice nuancethat I don't know why page one
search results for stoicismdon't ever go deeper.
I think people just don't wantto learn.
So it's hidden somewhere.
I don't know if it's two pagesback or five pages in, but I've
studied this for a long time andsomewhere on this bookshelf
I've got meditations by MarcusAurelius, which is his book, and

(16:44):
when I was reading through thatbecause you know again YouTube
I had something from BrianHoliday showed up in my feed and
Brian Holiday puts out a newbook, a podcast interviews like
he is just broadcasting stoicideas 365 days a year with
products and books and and hehad some major tragedy, business

(17:06):
tragedy in his life and I meanhe's even had a talked about in
one of his podcasts, like wherehe lives now.
Someone broke into his houseand like stole everything but
the one thing they didn't stealor any of his books.
He was so relieved that none ofhis books were stolen because
that's where all his.
He's got all these great bookson stoicism and some of these

(17:26):
leaders and there are manydifferent stoics like I'm going
to just lazily just mentionMarcus and a Pactitas, because
there's some of the big heavyhitters.
And then there's there's theother person that shipwrecked
and I'm forgetting his name.
Maybe you remember James thatstarted the whole thing at the
stowa to begin with, an ancientGreece, it was a.
It was a merchant trader thatgets shipwrecked and agreed at a

(17:49):
Greek port and then he goesinto a shop and he becomes aware
that there's people talking onthis plaza or this like area
that they call in Greek thestowa, and it's just like an
open, like edge of a building.
It's like the porch literallytranslates into the porch.
And so he's.
He's like he's just losteverything.
He's lost all his money, allhis worldly possessions.

(18:11):
He's pretty much homeless.
He goes out to this porch andjust starts talking about his
philosophy and like what'shappened, and people start
listening and then boom, now hebecomes a leader of this new
philosophy in Greece calledstoicism.
That at the time I don't knowthat it had that name right away
, but it later gets that namebecause they're always at the

(18:31):
porch, the stowa, which is justlike talking from the porch.

And it was a different mindset from
the rhetoric that was and that'ssomething that Marcus Aurelius
talks about as well too is youknow that debate him as the
leader, you know as the emperor.
A lot of the emperors take thatrhetoric side, which is more
for entertaining, more forgetting people excited, whereas
the stoicism is principles whichI think fit directly into.

(18:57):
I mean, 2000 years later, theyfit into everything that we do,
especially construction.
I think it ties into it, but ifit's into any job that anybody
is performing to be able to comein with that mindset.

Yeah, one of my favorite.
I know you've got, you've gotthese, these, these principles,
written down from the internet.
So what's number two?

So in a couple of these we're going
to skip, because they do coverdeath.
But jumping into number two,it's except fate, which is it
might be similar to line to whatyou were talking about as far
as accepting what you have forthe good, but it's another.
It's one of your life thatcauses a lot of people, a lot of
suffering, is the inability toaccept the unraveling of events

(19:42):
around them, despite theseevents being completely outside
the individual's control.
And then Epetitus again said donot seek for things to happen
the way you want them to, ratherwish that what happens happen
the way it happens.
Then you will be happy.

Yeah, and that's, that's beautiful.
I've also watched and listenedto audio recording of the Tao De
Jing as, as people thought, waswritten down by Lao Tzu.
And then this this is anotherphilosophical text that comes
out of ancient China, andthere's a great metaphor that
Lao Tzu uses to bring that ideato life.

(20:20):
He says, like there's thisgreat river, he's like there's
really no river, so don'tlistening to this.
This is a metaphor to try toexplain this thing.
He's like but imagine, there'sthis great river and we're all
floating in it.
It's like some people willsplash a lot and try to control
where they go in the river, andthen some people just don't do
anything and just go whereverthe river takes them.

(20:41):
And then some people makesubtle movements and control and
go down the river, but theydon't fight going down the river
.
He's like some people willfight going down the river,
which is like akin to whatyou're saying in your fate Like
things are set up, initialconditions are set.
It's like this whole concept ofpredestination, that your
destiny is set, your fate.
And then there's this wholeidea that people have disagreed

(21:03):
on forever.
As long as there have beenpeople talking about fate,
there's been disagreements on.
Can it all be faded, because itcan lead to nihilism and then
people just getting disenchantedand disconnected from society
because they feel like there'szero control.
And this whole parable of theriver and this talking it's
about you can co-create withyour fate, and it kind of, to me

(21:28):
it leans into that.
There is a fate because, hey,you're in this river Like other
people outside of the river,like I don't know.
Like in the metaphor he doesn'tsay that the people on the bank
watching the people in theriver, like that wasn't covered.
So I'm just imagining likesomething has to contain this
river of flow and I think it'sto be more of an energy type of

(21:49):
thought.
And then you know, I studyelectrical engineering.
I can tell you, like we learnedin school through my studies,
that everything is energy.
So, like you could just useEinstein's basic equation, e
equals MC.
Squared, you can put all matter, all things that we perceive,
that there's a band, an energyband.
Sound is part of it, lightspart of it, physical things heat

(22:11):
, everything that we canperceive and cannot perceive.
So we have, you know, a lot ofthose tools, equipment and tools
for some of the perceptions,but it's all energy, it's all
vibration and I don't get alllike woo woo on people, but this
idea that things are going tohappen, you can't control it,
that's fact.
Like I didn't, as far as I couldtell.
I didn't pick where I was born,I didn't pick what kind of

(22:34):
parents I was going to have andthen I didn't pick how my
parents would react in certainsituations.
Pick, like, how was I going tofeel this morning?
Like last night I had a feverthat I asked my wife like before
I went to bed and was like, hey, should I go on James's show?
And she's like, oh yeah, youcould podcast, no matter what.
So here I am, right, so I don'thave a fever now I'm not

(22:58):
hallucinating, but I couldn'ttell, like, you know where,
where am I going to be in thislike sickness curve of this head
cold that I have or whatever itis, mm-hmm, but that idea that,
fighting your fate, I liked thefrom the Dow to Jane, there's,
there's a little bit and itcould.
Just because I'm a control freak, you know, to some degree,
people and that's not my, not myphrasing, other people have

(23:20):
said that about me Uh, I could,I I'm just I like and discern
what I like, and like you weretalking about the philosophers
earlier.
That time some of the bigphilosophers on the stage at the
time the stoicism is coming upare influences from Plato,
aristotle, and I've heard a lotof people criticize Plato.
When you start readingphilosophy, you'll you'll
realize that people just don'tautomatically like it, like in

(23:41):
Western civilization, I wouldsay, especially in the United
States like there's a lot ofinfluence from Plato that people
don't even see, don't evenrecognize.
So one of the things that Platodid was he discovered these
Platonic elements or these likebasic shapes.
But it's this idea ofdiscerning things and dissecting
things and analyzing.
So in Western culture it'salways a let's kill it, take it

(24:03):
apart to see how it works, let'sbreak it down.
And you hear it in our language, like how we talk, like hey,
let's, what's this problem?
Let's break it down.
Let's always break it down, cutit, kill it.
It's words like that, todiscern, and that comes from
Plato and Eastern philosophy.
It's about understanding howthings work together
systematically.
It's like let's observe thisthing without interfering with

(24:26):
it and let's unify what'shappening.
It's a different approach.
It's not a dissect, it's a lookat it in the system's
perspective how it fits together, how it works, study how it's
moving natural patterns, andwe're in the West.
It's like kill it, cut it,break it down, bust it apart,

(24:46):
and the answer is like youactually need both, like you
need both things.
It's not one or the other.

You know that river story that you
were talking about, that one waskind of eye opening here in it
described that way, cause it wasrecently that I've heard that
description where you reallyhave to.
You're on this river, don'tfight it, and if you go with the
flow then you're going to havewhere's it flowing right and
then you have a little bit ofguidance in there.
But if you fight against itthen you're defeating yourself.

(25:15):
It's like swimming upstream.
It was kind of a little bit ofenlightenment and I will.
You know, I do want to talkmore about this vibrations,
electrical flow, cause I didn'ttie that together when you'd
mentioned that earlier aboutyour electrical engineering
degree and how everything isenergy, how everything is flow.
So that's interesting.
I didn't think we got toohippie there.
But you know where our wholething is, the you know we bring

(25:35):
enlightenment to the topic ofcommunication.
I've had a lot of, I would say,not necessarily negative
feedback but pushback on theidea of enlightenment, because
people think it's kind of hippie.
What do you mean enlightenment?
They get this different pictureof that word.
It went in reality it issomething completely different,
which is what we bring, whichthat.
So I want to bring up a pointin your book right here.

(25:57):
That is a moment ofenlightenment which I thought
was really an interesting take.
And it's when you had beenworking a hundred hours a week
and you were telling the storywhere you know I think you were
first introduced to you know,it's just read a book on lean.
And this guy said this, or yousaid, I don't have time to read
a book, you know I'm working ahundred hours a week.

(26:18):
Then he replied no problem,keep doing the same thing and
think about it.
Think about it if you are beingeffective at work or being
present at home.
And then you said this wake upcall, and that's a moment of
enlightenment.
I mean that it took that turn,those words, for you to make

(26:38):
that change and realize that youwere really trying to swim
upstream to try to fix theproblem when in reality you know
it was right.
So tell me about that moment ofenlightenment that you had in
that wake up call to kind of amight really a big mind shift
for you.

Yeah, the guy that you know shout out
to Mike, because Mike is theguy that asked me that question.
We were in a, in a hotelballroom, you know, having this
big conference, and, like I saidin the book, I'm turning it
probably already.
By the time that we had thatconversation I've already drunk
12 cups of coffee because Icould barely stay awake.
And so that's because I'm justworking too hard.
And in preparation this is howcrazy we were, james, in

(27:17):
preparation for being offsitetwo days for this mandatory
conference Like we all had towork extra hard so that we
wouldn't be behind.
Because, like we were, we musthave the same type of leadership
.
Because our leadership was likeyou're all behind, like you're
always behind, like everything'sbehind everything's, you know,
like late, and it's just nottrue.
It's not true when you get tolook into it.

(27:38):
So I'm tired, I'm stressed.
And when he says that to me,like the first part, I was
dismissing him like he wasn'teven done with the sentence and
I was already like dismissing,like I ain't nothing, like I
don't, I'm not reading.
But then when he said, you know, we mentioned my personal life
in an instant, I saw my wife'sface in an instant and my wife

(27:59):
is like a very no BS, shoot,shoot straight, be super honest,
incredible human being.
And I looked, you know,mentally, and this happened in
seconds and I knew like, oh man,I'm bullshitting myself, like
it's not as good as it could be.
I've done nothing to improve,you know, our relationship.

(28:21):
Like it's just like we're juststatic, right, it's just like.
It's kind of like the way itwas when we started working and
it's still the same.
And by the time I get home Idon't have energy to like be a
good husband, be super present,like I'm dire reading in the
mouth every day like thechallenges that I faced and
she's sharing her challenges.
So it's not like a sound notlecturing her every night about

(28:43):
you know what's going on, by nomeans, but I'm also not a good
listener at that time.
And so I thought and if this guyknows how to run work, his
people are happy.
Like his people were on stagewith him when he was presenting
this topic and it was fourpeople at different ages that
were four happy faces, and thisis a two days of presentations

(29:07):
from jobs about you know, thisis general contractor, and
nobody outside of his team hadlooked happy like not one.
And so that's why I was eventalking to him, because I was
like there's something, there'ssomething here and I've got to
like find out, you know what'sgoing on here.
And so when I had that momentof clarity, I thought, okay,

(29:30):
this is an, this is anopportunity.
I'm either you're going to dosomething with this or I'm going
to just probably probably endup going worse because it can't,
things can't, and even when youtry to this is a misconception
a lot of people have when youtry to maintain exactly what you
have, things actually get worse.
So you can't.
Uh, maintaining the status quois a myth.

(29:50):
That's another path tosuffering and uh and losses.
So you have to actually improveand people, you could test this
for yourself if you think I'mbsing you, but either either
keeping things the same, thingsare getting worse, or you're
improving.
It's way more fun to beactively improving and it could

(30:11):
just be the way I'm wired or howI've wired myself, but making
that change.
And it wasn't like the next dayI was better, right, cause I'd
already had a habit decade plus.
By this point in my career,james, I was probably, have you
know, 15 years in 10 years intoconstruction and I only knew the
one way, which is the workharder until you have nothing

(30:34):
left, like just burn everythingon your gas tank, type away.
And I used to get sick multipletimes a year, which is ironic,
cause I'm sick right now, but Iused to get sick like every
other month.
I'd have you know something andwe have a cold, a flu, like if
something was going around.
I was getting it.
And now here we are, you knowCOVID pandemic.
We're coming out of that, knockon wood, never had COVID.

(30:55):
I traveled all over the worldand this year I've been sick
three times in an entire year.
And that's with world traveland I think that's like for me
it's a big difference.
Other people might be listeningand they never get sick right
In 12 months, but for me, whoused to get sick every other
month from like six times a yearto less than three and I almost

(31:16):
made it into January, like it'sjust so close to only was going
to be two times that's stillsuch a massive improvement for
me.
So with perspective like thisis way better.
The time that I wrote that bookI was probably sick before that
conference, like the weekbefore.
It's still going to work Likewe used to go to everybody used
to just before COVID.
Everybody just can't remember.
Like we used to just go to worksick and just cough all over

(31:38):
each other.

Yes.
Well, we couldn't afford toLike I was the sole income for
my family and I would go to worksicker than I should.
I'm sure I got everybody elsesick, but that's just what you
did.
When you're the sole income,you went to work.
And then things change Ofcourse.
For me it became a salary aswell as being able to physically
take time off.
That was like.
That was a different mind shiftfor me as well.

(31:59):
To say what you're going to payme to stay home, I mean, that's
so.
I didn't take any of those timeoff.
Just like you were saying, Iexperienced a lot of sickness as
a kid.
It seemed like I had everysingle cold that you possibly
could get and in a lot of ways Ifelt like it was my work.
You know we did a lot ofdrilling with silica.
You know hammer drilling, youknow dust and stuff like that.
That would give me the snifflesand headcoats and things.

(32:21):
But was it just that or was itthe stress of everything that
tied in there?
And then recently I've taken onthis growth mindset and a lot
of times I think we have, we doa little bit of it and then when
we read about it, we we justcrank it up, because I think in
some ways I was a learner.
I wanted to grow.
That's what got me in my career.
But really taking them, theidea of a growth mindset, which

(32:43):
is just what you were talkingabout, is that's what makes you
happy, is being able tocontinually grow.
And I'm going to jump rightback in your book again, too,
because you made a statementwhich really ties.
This is where I think stoicismhelps us better understand how
we can change our industry.
But when you talked about, youknow, all those, those mantras

(33:05):
that we used to have to fightunder, this is the way that
we've always done it.
I hate those words.
The other ones do it my way, orthere's the door.
If it ain't, I like to puteight in there too, because
that's that's how you say it.
If it ain't broke, don't fix it.
We are not reinventing thewheel here.
Just do your job.
I've heard that one.
Put your head down and workhard.
Heard that one.
We are paid to.

(33:26):
Do not to think.
Heard that one.
Keep yourself busy.
We reward hard work.
I've physically have been theguy who has walked around with
the tape measure, because if youhave a tape measure extended
about a foot and a half and youwalk around a job site.
Nobody questions you thatyou're working, but I would work
all hard, all day long and notbe getting anywhere because
that's what was rewarded, and wehave traditions for good

(33:49):
reasons.
You know, this is again howwe've always have done it, and
those are things that youmentioned within you know,
within your book, where you'retalking about these phrases of
leading into the idea of scrumand change.
So I think change is the thingthat also ties to this mindset
of growth, because they tietogether, and those are some of
the worst words that I've everheard, which is that's not how

(34:12):
we've always done it.
And now I feel confident enoughto question that.
Well, is there not a better way?
You know there has to be otherways to approach that, and I
think that comes down to thisStoic Rule number four.
We're going to skip five.
We can talk about it if youwant, but it's accept death, and
there is a little bit of thatwhich I've had to kind of work

(34:32):
through recently.
I recently lost my dog, whichis putting an animal down is the
worst thing a human could everdo and it was the first time
that we had done it.
So it's kind of reinvigoratedme as I process through that and
really reading some of thesequotes has helped.
But and we can talk about thatone if you want but Stoic Rule
number four from the internetaccept that your happiness is

(34:53):
your responsibility.
And that whole concept goesback to that.
Hey, I'm sorry to ruin your day, I'm like, you don't have the
ability to ruin my day butaccepting that your happiness is
your responsibility.
Again, this guy's filled withthe epitetus quotes but if you
want something good, get it fromyourself.
Within our power, our ownopinions, aims, desires,

(35:18):
dislikes and some our ownthoughts and actions.
When we take thatresponsibility for ourselves,
that is instead of that blamegame.
And I've recently spoke withJesse Hernandez in our podcast
and he talked a lot about hisjourney through addiction and

(35:40):
getting out of addiction and oneof the biggest things that they
do there is that to stopblaming other people and
accepting that.
Have you worked through likepeople especially in this
mindset of that's not how we'vealways done it to also kind of
base that as their driver fortheir happiness?

So that list that you write off
from my book, like people I saidin the book like this came from
.
You know my experiences and bythe time I wrote the book, 20
plus years in construction, butI've heard all of those phrases
on one job and then I've heardthem on multiple jobs and they
still creep up all the time,like it's not over.

(36:21):
Right, there's still so manypeople indoctrinated in that way
of thinking and that absolutelywhat you just talked about on
that rule is a major factor increating change, Because all the
people that say that stuff toyou you can find examples where
it's not true in their own howthey manage and lead.
So you can easily like, breakit apart, but at the same time,

(36:46):
it's not, that's not valuable,because they're trying to.
They're trying to get you to dosomething when they use phrase,
when you hear phrases like that.
So if you're on a constructionproject now and design it as
well and you hear that phrase,that's somebody trying to
control you.
Just be aware of what you'rehearing and then someone is
trying to control them.

(37:06):
That's the part that you oftenwon't see.
They're feeling pressure fromsomewhere else and you're
probably at the bottom of thefood chain where you're actually
the value producer.
You're the important personmaking the thing or the ideas or
transforming something that theowner finds value in.
So you're the most importantperson.

(37:26):
But they don't treat you likeyou are.
That's all part of the game.
So you could just recognizethat the person above you is
actually probably doing the bestthey can with their limited
abilities, as most of us are.
Like I'm the same way, likeI've got limited abilities.
I'm not super human, but Irecognize that, that it just
takes a lot of that energy outof it and it could.
You're not deflecting, butyou're understanding where it's

(37:50):
coming from and when.
You can internalize that and ittakes practice.
Like what you said, it sounds soeasy and, like anyone that's
struggling with addiction, theyknow that blaming other people
is just like super easy and weall know somebody who is a quote
unquote negative person and ifyou think back to your last

(38:12):
conversations with them, theyprobably blame somebody for
their lack of happiness,unhappiness, fear, all these
other things, any human emotion.
They put it outside.
And you know, being a father isto help me get better.
I'm just thinking.
I've even asked my son, like asI studied Stoicism, like as

(38:32):
have you.
You start to realize everyemotion you feel comes from
somewhere inside and it's aspectrum so like you can have
happiness, can turn to joy, canturn to you know whatever could
go higher levels, euphoria andthen you could go down the other
way.
Where it can?
I always forget what theopposite of happiness is because
it's I don't think it's likewell known We've got to go back

(38:55):
to the internet for that one butall those things spring forward
from inside of you.
And that's when I was sayingearlier, like when people come
at you and you have emotionalreaction.
If you take a second and itliterally can be a second feel
where, where is it in you?
Is it like, is it deep in?
Did it hit you from the side?

(39:16):
Oh, is it like, did you feelsomething in the thought of some
other situation?
And then your, your brain'slike trying to play the record
of what you're supposed to doand react.
You can interrupt that recordplaying if you just say like, oh
, wait a minute, this, you know.
This person's like reallytalking down at me and trying to
get me to do something.
What do they really want?

(39:37):
And then that's when I'll comeback to the person and say.
I'm just asking them like, hey,this is what I'm doing.
Should I be doing somethingdifferent?
Uh, what do you really need?
What's the minimum thing I cangive you?
Now?
You can start to negotiate withthe person instead of just like
working harder, unnecessarily.
And for all aspiring projectmanagers listening to the show,

(39:57):
all deadlines are fake.
So, just so you know, let'sjust say it right now for the
record all deadlines are fake.
All schedules are full of livesand people you know.
Go ahead and come at me in thecomments.
I can dance with you all daylong.
I know lots of projectschedulers we've had this debate
with and we've either come todraw or they've lost.

(40:18):
But I have not, uh, not beenwrong about this.
Like these things are all.
We have ideas About what theyshould happen and with different
perspectives.
You have a different sense ofwhen's the right time, but
there's no one single time.
There are better times andworse times and ideal times, but
there's not one right answer.
And I know, like you got tobuild something like that

(40:41):
doesn't work.
But like the truth of thematter is, like when we're
building things, it's just beingclear on what it is we're
building makes more differencethan trying to target a date.

Yeah , I think the clarity and I
think the communication of thatclarity is something that I am
very much interested in.
The scrum idea.
What I like is we are doinglike you mentioned Plato is kind
of weaved through how we makesome of our problem solving.
I think there's a lot of stuffthat's weaved in that we're
maybe dabbling in but not beingreally successful at, because we
think we're communicatingclearly with our 75 page

(41:16):
schedule because it's all there,it's all in there.
People, we know exactly whenwe're trimming out room 232, we
know exactly when we're going todo it.
11 months ahead of time, right,we know exactly when we're
going to trim that out.
But it's the idea ofcommunicating that stuff through
an effective plan which is, Ithink, one thing that scrum

(41:37):
brings that you, you know you'rea big advocate for big, you
know teacher in this industryfor that.
Now, on that, just kind of wantto dabble a little bit more on
that whole happiness idea,because that one for me, that
one I had to internalize alittle bit to realize that, you
know, my happiness is myresponsibility and to be able to

(41:59):
know that that comes fromwithin.
Then I feel like I have morecontrol at that point.
And then it's about not givingcontrol to other people.
You know, I think that's one ofthe keys of that one.
But what I want to end on isStoic rule number five, which
is talking about exactly wherewe've been heading, which is
accept that life is change.

(42:19):
And I think, if you accept lifedoes change and then also twist
that to be life is growth aswell.
To continue to grow and this isreally one of my favorite
quotes from Marcus Aurelius,because it really it's an
illustration as well too andthis is what he says frightened
of change, but what can existwithout it?
What's closer to nature's heart?

(42:39):
Can you take a hot bath andleave the firewood as it was?
I'm certainly an old story,right, I turn on the hot water,
but that no idea is he's warminghis bath.
Eat food without transforming it, and I spent a lot of time
thinking about how you know youeat food it turns into this,
right and how this responsedepends on the food that I eat.

(43:00):
Can any vital process takeplace without something being
changed?
Goes to your thought of energy,can't you see?
It's just the same with you andjust as vital to nature.
So change is 100% inevitable,but why are we so?
My question to you is why arewe so resistant to change,
especially tying it to theconstruction?

Yeah, it's programmed and that's the
short answer is, it's programmedin.
It's a whole paradox of or nota paradox, but it's a systemic
way of having these habits andhow things come together.
Where people think is howthings come together and I've
had Sean Grace on my podcast andforget what season it was.
They talked about some of thehistory of construction going

(43:44):
back to the 1800s and he saidbasically that the way we build
today is identically the same asit was at post-Civil War and
nothing has changed.
We have the same insurancecompanies, the same types of

(44:07):
contract styles, we havepredominant contracting Hard bid
is still the predominantcontracting method in the world
and he's like the origins, fromwhat they can see, that goes
back to that time.
I was in a DBA Design BillInstitute of America training
course this week and they weretalking about the history of

(44:27):
contracts and they're showingthat what we're doing now with
design build is only returningto a previous type of
contracting style that existedbefore the 1800s before.
And it's kind of funny becauseyou know, sean was hitting this
and he's not dba, he just knowsthis, he's a history nerd and

(44:48):
the dba had this timeline.
They showed like this conceptof the master builder idea.
That goes back and they've gotsome people that give credit to
that but it goes back to likethis earlier time, like 1400s,
1500s and this other, you know,golden age time, and then they
fast forward to the industrialrevolution.
You get people really trying tooptimize things and take the

(45:12):
human creativity out to optimizeand one of the consequences of
that is that it became dreadful.
We saw, because of thecraftsman time before the people
that know their history, likepeople were, people were master
crafts people.

(45:32):
I mean you had like guilds andyou had like organizations and
there was a ton of training andit was like this career was part
of your identity.
And then in industrialrevolution, through optimization
and a lot of this is industrialengineering practices that go
back to Frederick Winslow,taylor and others like Henry

(45:55):
Gantt who invented the criticalpath waterfall schedule or made
it popular was contemporary ofTaylor, but they disagreed on
things like but that doesn't getlike, it doesn't get playtime
in the history book airwaves,right, people just remember what
benefited them and then, andthrough that time, it creates

(46:15):
this whole system of treatingpeople as less than amazing was
what we are and treating youlike you're replaceable and so
that that idea that that anybodycan do your job or people with
a title, it's a title that doesthe job.
That is just false and we knowthat even in how owners contract
when they make decisions onteams.

(46:36):
If it's not a hard bid, so allother contract styles, except
for the envelope and the lowestprice wins outside of that style
, which is now only half of allconstruction procurement, or
less and getting less, and allthe other styles.
People are selected based onpeople, not companies.
People, it's the people.

(46:57):
But even though that that'sgotten better on the front end,
you still get on to thoseprojects and that predominant
old stuff is still with us fromthe 1800s, early 1900s, where we
treat people like they can bereplaced, like if somebody falls
down on your job, nobody evenreacts right.
Maybe it's a safety incident,maybe it's not.

(47:18):
Nobody stops to say like, hey,are you okay?
What's going on like this?
That's not normal.
But in the craftsman era istotally different.
Like people looked out for eachother, it was a different type
of environment and productionwas allegedly less.
But people make that argumentthat it was less, but there's no
good data on that.
We even have the United Statesgovernment who, like, has a

(47:40):
group in the Bureau LaborStatistics and before them it
was another part of thegovernment.
They've been trackingproductivity since the 19 early
1900s and productivity andconstruction has been as a way
that they track.
It has been flat since 1955.
And then the last five, sixyears were actually lower
productivity than we were in the1950s, where all of the

(48:02):
industries agriculture, retail,manufacturing and had
exponential gains inproductivity.
Some of that has been the useof technology, but it's
ultimately processes and in theway that we build and organize
people, because it's still a tonof psychology for how we
organize, motivate people to dostuff.
It stayed flat, it's it'sresisted the change and I think

(48:25):
that my this is just my opinionI'm not the next one on this but
I think it's how we treatpeople so like there's times
when you can be very productiveand be in a flow state.
Things just happen easier andit's also having the right
people with expertise.
An expert can do something inseconds that a novice cannot do
in a year.

(48:48):
And one of the things I learnedabout this and scrum, like Jeff,
was teaching us in the earlydays they had they were
measuring software programmersand they found that like in one
company.
There's this one company thatdid a case study like 300
different individuals and theyfound that, like, people that
really knew and understood theprogramming were automatically

(49:09):
like 50 times more effectivethan people that didn't know it.
That well, still programmers,right.
So imagine that you're in thiscompany and you've got some
people that are 50 times moreeffective than others.
Like, what do you do with that?
How do you get the other peopleto become as effective?
Can you get them to become aseffective?
And in construction we see thesame.

(49:31):
Like that's why owners put somemuch emphasis on Team
experience, because we have thisbias that thinks that past
experiences and predictorforward success and it's
actually not.
And but you can't ascertainwhat makes someone an expert or
not and like so experience, youhave to try to Ask questions to

(49:51):
figure out what that experienceis.
So I think in our everyday,like what we consider
traditional and normal, itdoesn't lend itself to figuring
out what are people's actualcapabilities.
And then, even in the leanspace, this is something that's
so bad that manufacturing thatthey deemed it the eighth waste,
nonutilized talent, and allthat's telling you is, if you're

(50:13):
a manager, like how many peopleon that work for you or
adjacent to you?
Do you even know what they'recapable of doing?
And if you do know what they'recapable of doing, are you
letting them use those talentsand skills on your project?
There are, I mean there's.
I'll give it just one example.
I knew a job.
It was a 10 year job and it wassuper successful by all

(50:35):
accounts.
It was an airport project and Iknew a guy.
He's on that job for like sixyears and I talked to him like
what are you in charge of?
He's like all I do Is processRFI's, that's it.
I was like wow, I bet this guycan do more things than just
like take stuff in wordsmith itto push it out and then update

(50:56):
drawings, like.
And he had a degree inengineering.
It was like you have anengineer who's got like talent
and understands design and he'ssupposed to be quote unquote
managing construction and thiscompany has them just processing
RFI's and we would deem as anadministrative task and that's
like A major red flag.
Like like fast forward.
He didn't continue to work atthat company like after, after a

(51:20):
while, quit and went to go worksomewhere else.
Because you can't do that topeople, can't just force people
to do that type of stuff forsuch a long time, like it just
is not healthy for for them.
It is actually not good for thecompany.
And then scrum we know thisfrom the research.
You've got a cross train andlet people scratch that I need
to learn something.

(51:40):
Itch.
And there's some parts of yourjob you're not going to like and
there's some parts of your jobthat are like new and there's
some parts that you're reallygood at and you want to be more
holistic and let all of thosethings coexist at the same time
in the system that it welcomesthat.
And so a lot of teams that usescrum like it's just such a
different feeling that I've gotstories of people taking pay

(52:02):
cuts to work on scrum teamsbecause it's just so much better
than the traditional.
Money is not everything.
If you, if you're, if you'reworking in a group that actually
values you, the person you'regoing to work, your productivity
is going to be way differentthan if you're just doing a
paycheck job.

The UnCommon Communicato (52:19):
That's really what you just talked
about.
I think is the key tosatisfaction and construction in
general, and I hadn't reallytied it to the idea of of losing
that ability, of the harassmentand the guilds and stuff like
that.
I'm a millwright by trade, so Iwent through an apprenticeship.
It had its, you know, itstraditions and stuff like that
that really brought and I have afamily of millwrights.

(52:40):
My grandpa was a millwright viathe auto industry, grandpa was
a millwright via the autoindustry, my dad was a
millwright, my three brothers,so it's a family business that
I've left for the evil, generalconstruction, but that's a
different story to talk about.
But the idea is that there wasthat, that satisfaction at the
end of the day of knowing what Iaccomplished in and that's what

(53:01):
got me into construction, doingthat.
And in some ways we've takensome of that satisfaction away
for one and two.
Having people not do what youknow that ignites them.
You know that ignites them.
You know what really gives themthat satisfaction, because
there's so many things that needto get done and that person's
the best guy for the job and wedon't often sometimes want to
give Too much opportunity topeople.

(53:21):
I'm not saying we, but I thinkwe as an industry, because we
want them on our job, that guyis so good at RFI is why would I
want to replace him when inreality he's an engineer?
So it's really about tappinginto what people want to do.
But I also got the point thatyou said as well, which is some
things have to be done, andthat's, I think, a little bit
lost and can be lost in thisgeneration is.

(53:43):
I think there's a lot of peoplepursuing stuff that they a life
better than I had.
You know I work 2600 hours ayear for 11 years straight.
That is an additional threemonths of working time because I
took every bit of overtime thatI possibly can take.
And looking back at it, thekids don't think, hey, thanks
dad, thanks for doing that.
And that's part of that balancethat I'm seeing this generation

(54:06):
is really embracing.
You know they're takingvacations there's spending their
money.
Now they're enjoying portionsof life.
But there's also that point ofnot everything has to be the
funnest thing.
You have to find the fun inwhat you're doing and that goes
back to that whole thought ofyou know you're responsible for

(54:27):
your own happiness and you haveto find that happiness in the
things that you may notnecessarily have had to do
because you are that you like todo.

But you have to do, and even one of
the another philosophy is Zen.
Zen teachers, masters, willoften put their students into
these like very physical type ofthings, and there's a phrase
that they often use, especiallywhen they go to monasteries to
learn this type of stuff, andthe phrase they use is chop wood

(54:55):
, carry water.
And so chop wood, carry water.
Like you know, for Marcus whohad to heat his bath, it makes
sense in that time, and now wejust turn a faucet and our water
heater kicks on.
But so there's other mundanethings.
The point of that is that inthe mundane you could still find
fun and enlightenment canhappen even in the mundane, and
it's all like mindset.
So, like I have a practicewhere I like to clean things up

(55:19):
and you know, this room outsideof camera views probably.
I probably need like a good hourto clean this up, because I've
had trips and I just dumb stufflike on the floor.
It's the total mess right hereon my right leg, but in the
camera shot it looks awesome,right, but there are some dirty
spots here and when I go toclean it up, I'm going to feel

(55:39):
really good about cleaning it upand siding it up and I'm like,
oh, this is where that note went.
I hadn't seen this in like ayear.
Where's it?
And like another microphoneover there against the wall.
Like how many microphones arereally need?
I think now I have four and Igot some small ones.
I can have these little onesright here.
I got these little travel onesthat I take with me.

(56:00):
I think I have six microphonestotal now, but it's five too
many.

It sounds like it.
Well, felipe, this has beenfantastic.
I've looked forward to thisdiscussion on stoicism.
I think there's so much morethat we could dive into and dig
deeper in, but I think wetouched on a lot of great
subjects.
What do you think is our UCmoment?
That's the uncommoncommunicator moment.
Everybody's been listening nowfor an hour, but they're going
to maybe remember one thing whatis the one thing that you want

(56:33):
everybody to walk away fromtoday?

The one thing I want you to remember
is the thing that James triedto skip because it's dark and
that is.
One day.
You will die and you don'trealize it, but that is.
There's ancient Greekphilosophy that talks about what
separates humans from the godsand why the gods were so jealous
of people.
What made the gods jealous wasthe fact that we did die and

(56:58):
that we are aware of our death,and that makes us enjoy and live
life in ways that they couldnot.

I love that.
Enjoy life now and that's yeah,I did skip over that and thanks
for calling me out on that.
Appreciate that.
But that is a deep theme withinstoicism.
To gain that happiness is ifyou know, and I believe the
quote is you know, live yourlife or act like you have died
today and then live your lifethe rest of it like you died,

(57:28):
which is, you know, most peoplelive their life if they get like
a cancer diagnosis and you'vegot six months to live, they
caught and live it Like whydon't you do that every day?
And I think that's a greatthing to catch from today's
conversation.
Well, thanks so much, felipe.
That's all we've got.
See you.

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E102 - Stoicism and Communication with Felipe Engineer-Manriquez

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}E102 - Stoicism and Communication with Felipe Engineer-Manriquez