The Surprising Reason You're Burned Out (And What to Do About It) | Patrick Lencioni Ep.14

18:10Chris Cruz:You're wanting, are you wanting them to just go around telling each other? I don't like this about you. Like, is that the goal? Like to constantly be telling people, I've been so looking forward to telling you the feedback that I've been holding in for so long. Cause now we got some trust and I'm ready to let you have it. Not the yet. Well, okay. I'm going to jump to the end of the, so we'll do a day and a half or two days, initial offside teams. And at the end, we do an exercise that we would never have them do at the beginning. So I'm going to jump to the end. You know what the goal of this is at the end of two days, I'll say, everybody take out a piece of paper and write down one thing about everybody else at the table, other than yourself that they do.

18:44The main thing they do that makes this team really strong. yeah so what is the chief and I don't mean a technical skill like you're in charge of accounting and you're good at accounting I mean like what's the characteristic that they bring to this team that's great and everybody's glad to do that and then I go okay now write down the one thing they do just the one thing that hurts the team sometimes and now they're like but they but because it's at the end of a two-day off site or one when they've built up trust along the way and now they're ready to do it and let me tell you this is the most beautiful part of doing what we do and they'll write it all down and I'll say, okay, go to the leader first.

19:16You guys tell the leader what he or she does. You start with the leader. Yeah. And, but they start by going, what, what's the biggest thing they do? This is the only time there's tears. Cause somebody will go, wow, you guys. So you see that in me. And they're like, oh yeah, you do this all the time for us. And they're like, that's great to hear. And it's almost always consistent and real. And, and the leader is now like, wow. So you do appreciate the thing I care about. And they're like, oh yeah, you're great at it. Now. Okay. Let's go the other way. What's the thing they need to do better. And they will look at them and say, Hey, you know, um, you know, when the meetings, when you cut us off and you do this, that's hard for me.

19:51And because they've just told him something great, the leaders are always like, yeah, I know I do that. I'm yeah. And then at the end of it, they're sitting there and I'll say the leader, so what do you think? And they're like, this is great. And the people in the room are like, we just told him or her things that we've never said, but we led up to that moment. So it, it doesn't take years. It takes a day and

20:11Chris Cruz:a half and we just say the one thing. And then everybody else goes. Cause if the leader doesn't, and in almost 30 years with 50 consultants around the world, I've only heard, I think one story where a leader was just like, I can't believe you said that about one. We've done this thousands of times. And usually the leader is like, I love the fact that you guys just told me that. So, okay. This is fantastic. My question here is what is happening inside of a leader that's resistant to this whole process? When they, when somebody brings it up and they're like, we should do this. I've seen it. I've heard about it.

20:41Chris Cruz:I listened to that podcast anatomy of a brand. Pat Lencioni talked about the five dysfunctions of a team and this exercise. What is happening in that leader? That's like, they're listening to this. They're like, I don't want to do that. Yeah. I've never really noticed it. Kind of asked that question in that way. And I love this. Cause I think what's happening is we are all insecure and we're human beings. Yeah. Flawed human nature, human beings. And every leader, what I've come to realize is just a kid who's older. And just because they're the CEO doesn't mean they're not like the same person they were as a kid.

21:11And so vulnerability is what's necessary. But it's so easy if you're a leader. People have told you, don't let them see you sweat. You know, you got to be on. And it's such bad advice. Because when you're a leader, what gains you credibility is actually being the first one to say, yeah, I'm not good at this. Or I made a mistake. Or I'm sorry. Or you're smarter than I am at that. You're better. Teach me how to be like you. A leader that can actually make themselves secondary and do those things does two things. It proves to the people in the room that they're secure enough to be vulnerable to it gives them permission to do it too.

21:43If a leader can't be vulnerable first, the other people on the team won't and probably shouldn't.

21:49Chris Cruz:Yeah. I remember when I first started learning your stuff and I started diving into these questions about myself. Why was I not doing this? Why couldn't I do that? And I remember thinking if I'm not the most qualified, then I can't lead. and had to break down this thing, this insecurity that likes, that said, I have to be the most skilled. And if I'm not the most skilled and I admit that I'm not the most skilled, will they still follow me? Yeah. And will I still be able to lead or will someone else's skill eventually become a threat to my leadership and threat to who I am and all the team underneath me was always going to be less skilled than me.

22:22Chris Cruz:So it just kept getting worse and worse instead of building up around me champions who are better at so many things because I was willing to look at my own faults. So your work did that for me even. Yeah. And it goes from thinking that's a weakness. It's a strength. I mean, for somebody to say, Oh, here's my head of marketing. She's way better than I don't, I'm not good at this and she's great at it. I'm learning from her every day. That will do more for your credibility, for her confidence and for other people's perception that you have a great team. But when a leader, because of human nature, actually acts like they know more about everything than everybody else around them, people are like, this is a problem.

23:03And everybody feels it. Now, here's the thing, though. That's not to say that competence doesn't matter. And what I've come to realize, I was just thinking about this yesterday, that every CEO is actually a CXO. They're the best at something. And it's usually like, as they came up, like, I am the most creative or I am the most financially minded or strategic. So what I say is you're the CEO, but now I want to hear you're also the chief what officer. So it's like, I'm the chief yesterday. I was with the team and the guy who's the CEO is actually the chief creativity officer. Not good at strategy, not good at marketing, not good at operations.

23:38That's okay. So that's his lane now celebrate everybody else who's better in their lanes.

23:43Chris Cruz:So this is fantastic. It's so good. And I'm like, I want to go for hours here, but I have to keep myself moving because I want to double tap into everything that I wanted to ask. So I have one question around meetings. And then we're going to jump into Working Genius. You have the book, Death by Meetings. I've restructured my staff meetings many times based off of Death by Meeting, kitchen sink where you throw everything into one meeting. People are notorious. I have two questions around meetings. Yeah. When a company has their clear why, how do they not get lost in it being redundant to talk about and just getting, just bypassing it where it's just like, it doesn't even matter anymore.

24:20Chris Cruz:They don't even bring it up. They did their workshop. They did all the things and they're in their staff meeting and they don't even care about that anymore. They don't talk about it. It's not the metric they are worried about. Do you have any input on that? Any thoughts on that? Well, I come back to one thing. I think it was Samuel Johnson, the writer who said, people need to be reminded more than they need to be instructed. And I think about Jesus, I'm a follower of Jesus. He was constantly reminding people. We human beings forget things and lose sight of things. And so, so we need to constantly remind ourselves, remember why we exist.

24:52Remember our values. We do this when we have teams do this at meetings, every time they're like, oh yeah, it forms the context of what they're about to talk about. And, and there's, you just go through it though.

25:02Chris Cruz:Like you just say it, like you're like, I'm going to say it again, even though it sounds so redundant, even though I've said it a million times, I'm going to say it again. Nobody ever left a company because they said, you know, if that CEO reminded me of the values one more time, but people leave companies all the time. Like they never taught. I have a friend who went to work at a company, um, in medicine and he went, he went to run it for them. And he said he left after six months. He goes, they never talked about patients or doctors or medicine ever. It was just it. Everybody wants to work in a company where there's something that why it matters and reminding people of that.

25:37The best coaches, the best teachers, the best CEOs are constantly reminding people. And as I like to say, until the people in your organization can do a good impression of you as a leader, you're probably not communicating enough. It's like a parent. If they, if they go, I know dad, I'm not supposed to do this. It's like, yep. And I'm going to keep telling you.

25:55Chris Cruz:Wow. And at the end of their year that when they grow up, they're like, I'm so glad you kept telling us that you're like, you weren't happy when I told you, but we have to be chief reminding officers and we have to be willing to be teased about it. And that's how we know we're doing it enough. Okay. So in, in your pursuit of this, at some point you start to go and say, there's, there's something either happening in the market happening in yourself where you started to develop this thing called working genius. Something is going on either in you or the market. What is happening either in the market or in yourself that you developed an assessment called the working genius?

26:25Chris Cruz:Well, it was in myself. Okay. It was a complete accident. Most of my books came about because I'm working with clients or experiencing something myself. I did not think I would write this many books. I thought I'd write one. And then they said, how about another one? And then we said, there's another one. There's three. And I thought I'm done. And then we kept learning things. So here's how this one came out. My most recent one. I'm literally at work and I'm in, I'm doing a, like a, a zoom seminar for a bunch of Catholic priests. Cause I was, I was doing this thing and I love teaching and I love doing that.

26:56I was really excited, but some of the organization of that event didn't go well. And so then after that meeting, I had to get on zoom with the staff and tell them why they needed to get better. And I hated that. I was really bummed out. And then right after that, I had a meeting to come up with a new podcast idea and I was really excited. And the woman that was with me, Amy said, why are you like that? I said, what? And she goes, you get really excited and you get really bummed out and you get really excited. And I realized at that moment, this has been going on for 20 years. I go to work. I'm so excited to be there and something will happen and I'll be suddenly like kind of frustrated.

27:31And I never knew why. I thought maybe there's just something wrong with me. Is this a manic thing? But it wasn't. I, that day I sat down and I said, what am I doing when I get frustrated? What am I doing when I'm fully alive? And how does that happen? And in the course of doing that, thanks be to God, we discovered that there's actually six kinds of work that are required in any activity, producing a podcast, starting a company, building a house, planning a vacation, any kind of group activity requires six different skills. And you should spend most of your time doing the ones that give you joy and energy.

28:07And if you're called on to constantly do things that deprive you of joy and energy, you are going to get burned out. And for 20 years, I was doing something called galvanizing, which I didn't love. And every day I'd come to work excited to do the things I loved. And they go galvanize, galvanize, galvanize. They didn't know they were. And I was being asked every day to do the thing that was draining me.

28:29Chris Cruz:And so then in that you started to develop an assessment, you immediately were like, let's make an assessment on this. You know what? I got this thing that they're asking me to do and I don't like it. Let's make an assessment. No, I thought I was just solving my own problem. Okay. So I, we literally, it was in the whiteboard in my office. The first day we were on a zoom call with one of our consultants and we showed it to him. He said, Hey, look at this thing. There's six kinds of work and I don't like this. And this is what burns me out. The next day he was on with the CEO of this food company in Oregon.

28:57I remember, and the CEO was frustrated and he showed him the thing and the guy literally teared up and said, this is why I'm so unhappy. And the consultant called us. And then, and then I had it in my house on the whiteboard. So my wife is using it. My kids were using it. Their friends were doing it. We were doing it at work and we realized it was universal. It wasn't just for me. It wasn't just for this guy, these six kinds of things. And we kept evolving them and pushing on them. And then we said, you know, if everybody could figure out what their geniuses are, the two of the six that give them joy and energy, and everybody could figure out what the, their frustrations were, the two of the six that robbed them of joy and energy, the world would be different and teams would be different and people would feel different.

29:41My wife would be happier when she read my book.

29:45Chris Cruz:Which is an accomplishment. My wife doesn't read anything. No, no, no. This was like the third one that she read before it came out. I said, what did you think? And she goes, it was great, and I'm pissed. Wow. I said, why? And she said, because I've been working outside of my genius for so long, and I didn't know it, and I felt like a failure. So many people have said to us, I thought I was an imposter, or I thought I was a failure, and I didn't know why. you know when I first got out of college I got a job that was supposed to be literally the best job in America there was a there was a list that created that year and this company and this role that I had I got the best job in America everybody's like you're set for life 30 years later I now realized that it was a job that was requiring of me the two things I hated the most so I spent two years there grinding I didn't succeed wildly up until that point in my life I'd have been really successful.

30:40And I thought, well, here it is. I'm an imposter. I failed. And it was, it wasn't until I did working genius that I realized, oh, I was destined to fail. And if I could go back, I'd have said, oh, this is a great job, but not for me. And so many people are pursuing things that aren't really for them and they don't know why.

30:59Chris Cruz:Okay. There's two paths in my brain right now going like just a million miles an hour, which is not uncommon for me, but it's two paths. One path goes down. I want to know what the, the, I want us to go through what those working geniuses are. The other path in my brain goes, well, that's nice to be able to change your job when your geniuses don't work. And you're just going to go and do it a different job. I know people are like, I got to make money. What am I going to do when he's guys telling me to go find my genius? And I found it. And my job's like, I could care less what you think you're a genius at.

31:29Chris Cruz:Cause you still got to go do X, Y, and Z. And this is, let's do that. That one. Okay. The beauty of this, it's not about changing jobs. It's about telling the people around you, your boss and your colleagues, like, hey, these are my geniuses. And it's about using them within the job you already have. So it's not that I have to change careers. This is not a career thing. It's literally, and I like to say, if you were to hire somebody to run marketing at your company, you should ask yourself, well, what kind of job is that? Just because one person likes marketing, another person likes marketing, and they could be totally different things.

32:03So what do you need in that job? Well, similarly, people can have a job and say, I'm a youth minister. But what kind of youth minister? Are you a come up with new ideas youth minister? Are you the church already has a program and I'm going to run it really well? Is it I have to make decisions? There's so many different ways to do the same job. And so companies want their people to use their gifts. So it's not about getting out of that role. But sometimes they can just adjust it really quickly without changing your job description. It's like, Hey, you love doing this. You don't love doing this.

32:35We're on the same team. This is a win-win. I'm going to let you do part of their work and you can do part of their work.

32:41Chris Cruz:And everybody's happy and you do better work. The customers are happy. It's crazy. But I want, I love this story. A guy called us and said that he had a performance review and it had not been a good year. And so he was about to go in and find that out. I mean, he knew that they were going to tell him that. So he was going in to meet with his boss and his boss's boss. The night before, he took Working Genius, and he looked at the report, and he said, okay. He goes into the thing, and he gives it to him, and he goes, before we get started, can you look at this? And they were reading it, and they said, well, no wonder you haven't done well this year.

33:12This is a terrible job for you. He goes, I know. They said, we have another job in the organization that you'd be perfect for. And instead of sitting there and telling him why he failed, they said, we're putting you in that. He said, I got promoted instead of demoted because they understood what I was great at. Every good manager wants to put their people in a position to succeed. And usually you can do that within their current role. It's just rethinking how it happens.

33:41Chris Cruz:Pat, oh my gosh. And I could, like I'm on the edge of tears myself. Like just knowing this whole journey, I myself went through like 15 years in one industry working in that and wanting to pivot and change and going into the space of brand work and the creative space. I took the working genius before that pivot happened, but I took it and I used it as a, as a guide for where I would go next. I started to go, okay, if the job doesn't have this, this, and this, and wants this, this, and this, I won't be a good fit. I'll have to betray myself over and over and over again. And it's going to be bad for them and bad for me.

34:17Chris Cruz:So I, I use this as a way to guide myself through career changes, actually. And, you know, I think when anybody looks at hiring or getting hired, they should be looking at this. Yeah. And there was a lawyer I worked with years ago who actually said he was the reason why it was illegal to use assessments in hiring. There was a, the Supreme Court of Texas had a case where somebody sued because they were doing this and he represented those people and he won. And he goes, I'm the reason why you can't use assessments in hiring. I used the assessment with his team building. And at the end of going through it, he said, this actually works.

34:55I suddenly understand that you're successful in your job because of this. And I like it. And so what we say to companies is this, acquaint people with it, know what you're looking for in that job. So you can say, we're looking for a head of marketing, but we're looking for one that's really creative and likes to come up with these new things. We don't have a lot of systems. So we want you to come up with those. And the other person might say, well, I'm a very successful head of marketing, but I've always worked at companies where I was really executing a plan and helping sales close leads. And they're like, thank you for not putting me in a job I would fail in.

35:26Thank you for not wasting six months of our lives and our time. So it's not about judging people. It's about understanding them and finding the right fit. Gosh.

35:35Chris Cruz:Okay. So we're going to, there's the next path we're going to take on is you describing what are those six geniuses. Then from there, I want you to, you've actually initially said that the working genius was first as productivity tool, but it's morphed and changed and it's adapted. We'll get into that in the second half by even reviewing my wife and I's working genius. But what I want you to do is go through each working genius. And if you want, just because I'm a nerd and I read all this stuff and I just spend hours on this stuff. If you want to break that down to how the stages of work work, I wouldn't complain.

36:10Chris Cruz:I wouldn't complain. everything i try to go fast okay so i'm going to do the six types of working genius in the order that they come in like theoretically and how work happens and i'm going to do it in altitude from the very top like your head in the clouds at 50 000 feet to your feet on the ground at five feet and so the first working genius and the most mysterious one of all is the first one that happens in any endeavor and it's called wonder and the genius of wonder the w is the genius of just looking at things around you and asking good questions. And people that have this literally say, I wonder a lot.

36:45Like, I wonder why we do it this way. I wonder if customers want something more. I wonder if our, if this brand is no longer applicable. I wonder if there's a better way to do something. They don't have an answer, but they ask the question and every new idea, every company, every business, everything happens by somebody wondering. The problem is wanderers have been told all their lives to stop wondering. Certainly in school, they're like, what are you doing? He's in his head all the time. Yeah, he's wondering. He's asking questions. Just do the paper and turn it in on time. People with the genius of wonder have never usually been really acknowledged for it.

37:19And this is one of the best things to come out of this. It's like, no, this is a genius. In fact, we need it. My wife has W. Three of my sons have W. I never got it. And then we finally realize it's a genius. Now, wonder is not enough. None of these are enough. So that wonderer asks the great question and that comes to the next genius a little lower in the clouds and that's invention The wonderer asks the question and the inventor I have invention as a genius says Oh, I love this part. I get to actually try to solve that problem I get to come out of something out of almost nothing To help with that.

37:54So when somebody comes to me and says I have a problem and I need an idea a solution i'm like alive And i'm like give me let me let me try and that's why I then i'll come up with a book or a product or an idea or a new principle, I can't help it. And I like to say, you know, it's a genius when you get joy and energy from it. And you're likely to try to do it even when people don't want you to. Because sometimes my wife is like, I don't need your eye right now, but I like my eye. And she goes, so do I, but not right now. Okay. So the first two wonder and invention are what's called, that's where ideas, ideation, that's ideation.

38:30Now we move a little bit further. I come up with an idea, but somebody has to evaluate it. Somebody has to look at it and say, does this resonate? And this is discernment. Discernment is pattern recognition, gut feel, instinct, seeing connections between things. And it's people that have great judgment that they can't prove on a spreadsheet. And in organizations, this is so important. It's that person you turn to and you go, what is your gut telling you? because you know their gut is almost always right. That's discernment. So my editor, when I write books, it has discernment. And she'll just read a chapter and go, this character doesn't make sense to me.

39:11And I don't go, prove it to me. I'm like, if she thinks that, she's right. I trust her discernment. So it goes, wonder, invention, discernment. Once you've discerned the idea and gone back and forth and you're like, it's ready to go, then you need the one I don't have. which is galvanizing. That's the G that's the person who goes, you guys are ready with this idea. I'm going to go get everybody excited. I'm going to sell it. I'm going to inspire people. I'm going to push them. I'm going to tell them to stop what they're doing. We've got a great idea. They're, they're inspirers, motivators, pushers, marketers, salespeople.

39:46They love, they literally get joint energy, convincing people to do things that they might not want to do, which is so many people's least favorite thing in the world, which is so crazy because one man's trash or woman's is another man's treasure. The very things we don't like, somebody else loves. And when a team does that and figures that out, everybody gets better. So the galvanizer galvanizes everybody. The D and the G, the discernment and galvanizing, we call activating. That's taking the idea and activating it. The last two are implementation. And the first stage of implementation is the person with the genius of E enablement.

40:24They are the ones that when you say, I need your help, their first reaction naturally, joyfully is what do you need from me? I want to help you. Sometimes you go to the hospital and you wonder, how does that nurse answer the bell and just come into the room happy? There are people that God gave a desire to come alongside and help. And they literally get joy and energy from something that another person would go, that would, that would ruin me. They, they, they come alive and every organization needs it. I was with an organization yesterday had almost no enablement. And what happens in those organizations is everybody has great ideas and nobody wants to help.

41:01And they're like, is anybody going to answer the call? Like, no, I have my own thing over here. The people with E are like the glue in an organization that say, I will do it. They come alongside, they volunteer and they're, and they, they support the last part of the last one. Now we're on the ground, five feet down. We're landing the plane. And that is the genius of tenacity, the tea. These are people that get joy and energy truly. And I have no understanding of this because I have none of this out of finishing things. They're like, I don't rest. I don't, I don't smile. I don't breathe well until it's finished.

41:34I love the act of taking it through to the end. So people say, well, Pat, you must have a lot of tenacity. You've written 13 or 14 books. And I'm like, oh, I'd have finished none of them if people with more tenacity haven't been around me because I lose interest after I'm halfway through and I'm thinking about the next book and they're like, no, lovingly, they're like, no, get in there and keep going. And then I'll finish it poorly. And they go, nope. See, I would never do that on my own. So tenacity is the end. So it goes, I wonder about this. I'll invent an idea. I'll discern that idea. We'll galvanize people around that.

42:07I'll, I'll, I'll help. I'll, I'll volunteer here to help and then I will make sure it gets done. Nobody has all six. Nobody. And every job, every project needs all six. And here's the bottom line though, Chris, when people don't understand their working geniuses, they feel guilty about the things they're bad at and they judge other people about the things that they're not good at. And it tears apart friendship and and teamwork. And suddenly when you realize your geniuses and their geniuses and your frustrations and their frustrations, you actually are, are celebrating that and celebrating even your own frustrations.

42:52It's such a great thing for me to be able to say, I suck at finishing and I'm not saying I'm a bad person and I need help. Now that's not an excuse. Sometimes I got to finish

43:05Chris Cruz:Yeah, that's where we were going to go to. I'm like, I was speechless for the last like 10 minutes. I'm like, this is fantastic. And it's like, just, I think I've said fantastic more on this podcast than anything I've ever said, because this is the stuff I just, when I'm not in the space of thinking creatively about projects or the brands we're working on, the things we're doing, I'm, I've told people, even on our team, I've told them, I said, Hey, I know we're doing all this creative work. I said, but for me, I'm testing a hypothesis for myself, which was, can I reinvent work and make it meaningful and have it be a path for human flourishing for people.

43:38Chris Cruz:And this company that we're building is my test case. Can we do this? Can we do creative work that works with these brands, but then in and of itself, the product is this company. Can we do this? And this stuff makes that happen. And you know, so often we talk about meaning and work and we think about the industry we're in or the big thing, and that's important. But even if you're doing something that's changing the world, but the work you're doing to make it happen, it's killing you. Yeah. You're like, well, but I'm, I'm feeding the hungry, but I'm doing the wrong job. Yes. Yes. And so, so what we believe is that when people realize their geniuses, they actually find the right seat on the bus.

44:14You know, Jim Collins talks about getting the people in there. And we have a book called the ideal team player, which is like humble, hungry, smart. If you have a team, get those people, but then you get them in and you're like, are they in the right seat? You know? And so find that's what working genius is about is finding the right seat and that's what makes work fulfilling now there's so many days and as a dad of four sons i had to do a lot of tea work tenacity nobody could go oh i have a new idea about changing a diaper it's like you know finish changing it it's halfway done somebody else will finish it no they won't you will running around bare bum there's but you know and and and here's the interesting thing about parenting my wife felt like a failure for years because and i remember we didn't have the working genius.

44:58And I would say to her, why don't you find somebody else who loves doing this part of, of, of running the household? Yeah. And she'd say, but my friends love it. So there's something wrong with me that I don't. And the thing is they had different working geniuses, right? Not all moms love scheduling carpool and paying the bills. Yeah. Not all moms love sitting down and emotional obligation.

45:20Chris Cruz:My wife and I have talked so much about this because especially in, in faith circles, you can get these stereotypes that will go, this is what you are, what you should be like. And if this, you're doing this, that means you're doing it right. And so then so many people don't measure up to that and they wrestle. Me and my wife have had many conversations about this. Every parent feels guilty about the things they're not good at. I cannot hang a picture on a wall or mow a lawn. I'm just terrible at that, but I could organize a youth group and I can, I can do other things and help my kids with, with homework and Certain homework I love helping them with others.

45:53I don't.

45:54Chris Cruz:Yeah. And it's like, we feel guilty for the things we can't do. God didn't make any of us to do it alone. We need others. And when you're in married and you have, it's just two of you, you never cover all six geniuses. So you should know which ones you don't cover. Know that going in and saying, we're either going to need to accept the fact that we're not great at that part of it or find people that can help us. Okay. So you're, you're, that's a great segue into the next part of this. So I'm going to ask you this question from a brand perspective and you leading your company and how this, how this has impacted your company.

46:26Chris Cruz:And then we'll, then you're going to give me my own personal time here with you, with everybody in the room. And you're going to go through my working genius and help me. So you launched this as a productivity tool. I remember listening to the first podcast. I've been in it since the start. This is a productivity tool. It is starting to pivot to a different type of tool. Yes. As someone leading a company, building a brand around something, what is happening that you're, and how is that ruffling feathers or not? Like, how are you speaking to that product is pivoting? Well, here's what we mean by that.

46:55It definitely is a productivity tool, but first and foremost, it is a personal revelation tool. See, we, we worked for companies, we were in the business world and we were helping organizations and everything up until this point had had a primarily an organizational application. When this came out, we were like, hey, what a great, so we were just, you know, you work in a bakery, you come up with something, you sell it in a bakery. Well, maybe that belongs someplace else. And you don't realize that because you've only been baking. So what I realized a couple years into this is that, wait a second, this isn't first a tool for teams.

47:32It's first a tool for people to feel less guilt and less self-condemnation and more appreciation for others and for themselves. And once they get that and start to apply it to others around them, then it goes to the workplace. You don't start in the workplace. Everybody that's doing this is like, I want to understand myself. And even though that definitely leads to teams are transformed by it, it doesn't start there. And we are learning to help people understand it's enough just for you to get it on your own. And apply it not only at work, but in your home. anywhere you do things. We could have called it the six types of doing genius, but work, but we work at home.

48:13And you know, we're going to talk about you and your wife. Think about this. Most of what you do in your marriage is work.

48:19Chris Cruz:Yeah. Yes. I mean, you're, you're like, who's picking the kids up? How are we doing this? Well, how are we going to do? Organizing that? Where are we going? How long ahead are we thinking? What's happening in the next three months that we need to think about? How are we organizing our lives around that? You've got a baby coming. And what, like all those. Exactly. And so if we don't break that down in terms of what are we good at? What are we not good at? We're going to inevitably feel guilty for whatever we're not good at. Okay. So one last, one last question in that, has that been hard for your team to look at a product pivot or has everybody been like, we recognize it, it's changing and we're, we're good with that.

48:52It's taken us about six months, six months. Okay. Cause it's, it's a new thing for us. All right. It's a new thing for us. And I, and I, in this case I'm often wrong and other people are telling me this is I think I had this realization first for whatever reason. And they're like, but we're a business company. Yeah. And I said, yeah, but this is a personal development tool. And like, yeah, but we're a business company. And it took us a while because we just, that was not our muscle memory. Did you think you were going to maybe start a different company for just this or? Well, it's interesting.

49:21It's interesting because we've always known this could be its own company. I was with, where was I just the other day? I was, uh, oh, I was, I was on a podcast. Okay. And at the end of the podcast, we started talking about working genius and the cameraman after it was over goes, oh, I didn't know you're the working genius guy. We were talking about organizational health and all this. And he goes, oh, yeah. And then everybody from the company came out and said, look at our working geniuses. They didn't even know we did that. Love it. So it has been a new thing for us.

49:48Chris Cruz:Yeah. And we think probably there's, you know, a million and a half people almost have taken this. I was going to say it's resonating. Over a million people have taken this thing. And so a lot of people know working genius and then they'll find out later, like, oh, is that the same people that did the five dysfunctions of a team? Interesting. So that's where our branding is coming. Okay. Combining those together. Gotcha. All right. So we're going to geek out for me. So everybody on the podcast, if you don't care about this, you can jump off. But if you want to see it in real time. Oh yeah. This is so fun.

50:14And I don't know what this is. No, you don't. I'm going to look at this for the first time. First time. This is my wife and I. So my wife's going to get a kick out of this.

50:19Chris Cruz:You might actually listen to the podcast now. But these are our two. This is my wife and this is me. Okay. So you can say them out loud so people understand. So Chris is what's your, your geniuses are IG. Yes. Invention and galvanizing. We call that the evangelistic ideator. Okay. You're the person who comes up with new ideas and loves to sell them. Your love's like, let's go. You get excited and you want to, you want to motivate people to do something about it. You know? And I know. And the people that know you like, oh my gosh. And that's what I love about this. It takes 12 minutes to take this assessment, which is shocking by the way.

50:55And you get the results back and you're like, and then you show it to other people and they laugh and they go, you totally do this. Yes. And you're working frustrations are ENT the same as mine. Okay. Which is, which is, and see, it's, this is important to understand. You don't naturally like to respond to whatever people are asking of you and to finish. Now you're a very generous person. You're very enthusiastic, but if it's not an inventive thing that you can get them going, that's how you serve people. it's when somebody says will you help me with something and it doesn't fit what you're great at you you're like i don't really want to that doesn't mean you're not unkind it just means that's your genius yeah your wife lana yep your wife is a dw or a wd yeah this is the contemplative counselor what what they are they listen they can they take things in and they have amazing insights so let me just predict it feels psychic like i know i know it's not it's not believe you me.

51:50I don't do that. So here's the crazy thing. And, and I do this with people and they do it. They're like, how do you know? And it's like, cause it makes sense. Um, oh, and by the way, your wife's working frustrations are your geniuses. So, so, and literally this, imagine you and her get a new job and you come and it's the exact same job and you come home and go, I just got the job of a lifetime. They just want me to come up with new ideas and get people to change what they're doing and your wife would go i just got the world's worst job it's i have to come up with new ideas and get people to do something they're not doing i mean your treasure is her trash and in a marriage that that can either be annoying or it can be oh i'm so glad you love doing the things i don't like yeah i don't know how much of that happens but hey well it takes a while so but her geniuses fit yours perfectly and it's going to annoy the crap out of you at first i mean it could and i've had this with people i know people with the almost the same combo and the husband goes like this we had a guy with a very similar thing who wrote to us right after working genius came out and said you don't know how this changed my life he said i used to think my wife didn't like me he goes i mean it i know that sounds silly but i kind of thought she didn't like me and on valentine's day we did the working genius and i really and here's why he was an ig he was he came with new ideas, was so excited.

53:15She was a D, a WD like you, like your wife. And she would always give him like, well, honey, but this is why that might not work. And he would go, why are you crushing my dreams? And she's like, I'm not, I'm loving you. When they figured this out, she goes, see, I was loving you because I don't want you to drive a car off a cliff. I just want to give you feedback that'll make your idea better. And he was like, but you keep telling it's not going to work. And she's like, but I see things that you don't see. And they literally, he said, we discovered that she loved me in a way I didn't understand.

53:44And I thought it was, she was against me, but she's for me.

53:46Chris Cruz:So tell me, okay. So now the marriage counseling part of your job. So, okay. And if we, and if I needed to tie this in for people, listen to the podcast, when you're a healthy individual, it impacts all of the areas of your life. You cannot keep things in a box. No, no, no, no. So it all impacts. So the way I do my marriage, all the, as we know, the Coldplay concert, we all see how that plays out when CEOs don't live with integrity and value in their life. We know how those things play out. So these things do matter in your behind the scenes when you're not running your brand at the face. Tell me more about my wife.

54:20Chris Cruz:What is the DW like? Tell me more about the contemplative counselor. They are so insightful, but not like really fast to say no, but they see, so you're gonna come on and go, got this new idea. Okay, we're gonna do this thing. Here's how much it's gonna cost. I can see it right now. we'll do this and here's how it, and it's going to change some things in our family. And she's going to, going to be contemplating them and noticing subtle insights. And she's going to be like, Oh, wait a second. And you're going to be like, wow, but it's exciting. And she's seeing, it's not a no, it's a, but what about this?

54:59And what about this? And, and so what's great is what you can do is go, Hey honey, I have this great idea and I'm really excited. I have a whole plan. but I need your discernment. Yeah. Cause this, I might, I'm, I probably am missing something. We tell I geez, it's like have a partner who's a discerner. Cause that's what's in between, you know, invention goes to discernment before it goes to galvanizing. And you're going to say, I want that. And she's going to go, you want that from me? So I have discernment. My wife doesn't, when she comes to me and says, I need your discernment. I'm like, Oh, this is great.

55:31Cause I love doing it. And she's recognizing that I have a gift. And I say to her, I need your wonder about this.

55:37Chris Cruz:And that's the one that I think when you say wonder, when you started articulating, when a person has wonder, whether it's in work or at home, why are we doing it this way? Like that is my wife, like through and through, like she will challenge conventional norms, not even realizing she's challenging such deeply seated conventions that she's like, why do women have to do? And I'm like, okay, here we go. We're going for the ride. And so she will then just unpack all of these things she's been thinking about going, this is why that doesn't work. This doesn't work. And this doesn't work because I've been asking this question about this.

56:13And I'm like, okay, whoa. Now, you know, what's awesome. So my son is a WD who I work with and we'll go into a meeting and I'm an I and I'll come up with an idea and he'll say, that's not a good idea. And I, I will go, and you know, and you're like, and I'll go, well, what do you think? He goes, I don't know. I don't have I. I'm a WD. And literally he's like, I'm just telling you, I can see that this and this and this isn't right. I wish I could give you a better one, but that's not me. And, and that's the beauty of this model is like, people should use these words. And, and, and my wife has said something to me one time and, and I, and I, and I'll get frustrated and I'll go, wait, are you W-ing?

56:50And she goes, yeah, I'm just W-ing. I'm like, oh, okay. So you're like calling it even in the work. And is your team doing that too? Oh, we do it all the time. I say to people at work, Hey, I'm eyeing you. I'm, I'm, I'm throwing out an idea. I'm not G in you, which is trying to get you to do it. Cause sometimes I'll, I'll come to talk about this with Cody in your most, one of your recent

57:10Chris Cruz:podcasts about the idea that because you're the boss, people will naturally think I'm galvanizing. Yes. Which I think is my problem. Right. Cause I'm, I am a galvanizer. So when I have an idea, everybody's like, he must be, this must be it where I'm like, well, kind of like, I'm not quite sure if it's it, but I'm like, it's a good idea. And if, and so what I, like what you, what we need to do sometimes is separate our geniuses and say, right now I'm eyeing you. I'm not G-ing you. So don't run off and figure out how to implement this. I actually am looking for your discernment. Love it. And so it's what you're, what Lana's going to go.

57:43Oh, so you understand that I do have good judgment. Cause here's the pain in the butt about Lana. Her questions are really good. Yeah. WD's has really good questions.

57:52Chris Cruz:Yeah. I'm like, she's, she does, she's currently training for equine therapy. where she's like, and it's just like the amount of questions she asks or the question she asks of herself. I'm like, I would never. Okay. Yeah. All right. Let's go. So it's true. I love this so much. Pat, this is super insightful for, from a company standpoint, from an individual wholeness standpoint, all of these things. Now let me wrap us up with one final blast for me. Oh, I'm so, Yes, because I'm like geeking out still over here. If you had to start everything over, if you were like, all right, I've got to rebuild the table group, knowing all the things you know, would you focus on working genius as like a potential like hiring process?

58:38Chris Cruz:What would you do if you were starting over with the table group right now? And of course, that's always a dangerous thing to do because you want to thank God for the path he puts you on. But like from a, from a theoretical intellectual standpoint, um, the first thing I would do would probably be write the book, the motive, which is about why leaders should or should not be a leader. Cause so many people, I want to start with that and say, is this for others or is this for you? Cause if you don't, if you get it wrong, stop. And then I would probably do this and say, I want everyone, including leaders to understand themselves and understand the people they lead.

59:12And the motive works for, for, for home as well. It's like, why are you a parent? Are you doing it for your kids or are you doing it for you? And so I would probably do those first. My last two books were the first ones I should do.

59:24Chris Cruz:Wow. And, but that's kind of how it goes because we're peeling the onion and we're getting to the middle. And then after that, I don't know. It's such an interesting question. I'm doing some new work right now that I think will be more foundational than all of this, which is just about how human beings leaders, but anybody can better understand themselves so they can actually take the first step toward personal development and understand how to do that. Because I think most people are like, I know things aren't right, but I don't know what to start with. And so that's my next thing. I love it.

59:55Chris Cruz:And the motive, working genius, all of these things are, the great part is all these things are available right now. And people can actively engage with this at any stage of their company. And when they're building their brand, if you're thinking only on the creative front and you don't think about these elements, I think you're a mess. I honestly do. I think you're on the wrong track. I think you're going to make something that's really beautiful and has great potential impact. But I think you can run people over again and again and just have not high retention. Your culture becomes toxic. Yeah.

1:00:24Chris Cruz:Without this stuff, I think your brand will fizzle. I think one of the things at the heart of this is when you understand yourself and the gifts God gave you and you understand the ones you don't have, which is okay too. You can be more of gets back to what we talked about earlier, more vulnerable, more comfortable with who you are, better able to celebrate others, better able to, to look at things so I think it's actually a great trust building tool on a team and in a family with a wife and a husband can you imagine saying oh you you do appreciate them the things I'm good at yeah and I shouldn't feel bad for the things I'm not good at so real quick here what problem is the working genius actually solving like how what is the thing you're thinking like this is going to solve this problem and work or at home whatever what is that problem the the biggest thing is it allows us to avoid unnecessary guilt and frustration and unnecessary judgment of others because we don't understand our gifts and those of others.

1:01:16And, and, but the most practical thing that happens when we don't understand our working genius is that we experience burnout. How would you define burnout? See, here's the thing. People have been defining it wrong. And I know this cause I've been through it myself. We think, Hey, that person's burnt out. They need a vacation. They need time off. And sometimes people are just, they do, but most times that's not the right answer. In fact, most people that are burnt out, if you tell them, hey, just take a few days off, they're like, I don't think that's the solution. What we really have to do is realize this.

1:01:47We get burned out because we're doing work that drains us of our joy and energy. See, it's about joy and energy. That's your working genius. When people say, I don't know what, we just ask them the question, well, what brings you alive when you're doing it? Most people know that. And so when you get joy and energy out of doing something, you don't get burned out. You can come home from work. I came home from work recently, and it was like 12 hours, and my wife said, you seem really energized. And I'm like, I was doing the stuff I love. I can go home after four hours of doing the stuff that drains me and feel burnt out.

1:02:19So oftentimes we think burnout is the amount of work. It's actually the nature of the work you're doing. And the best way to understand joy and energy is to think about this analogy we use around coffee cups. okay so you're working genius when it comes to energy is like pouring coffee into like a yeti mug where you screw the lid on and it'll stay hot all day you're always like how does that work and it's if that's your your genius you can just do it and you keep your energy and your joy you're working competency which is your next two it's neither your genius nor your frustration is that starbucks cup you get and you pour coffee into it put a plastic lid on it and it's going to stay warm for a while.

1:02:57Your working frustration is the coffee cup that you pour coffee into and there's a little hole in the bottom and it just starts leaking right through. And so burnout comes down to are you actually doing the kind of thing where you're just losing your joy and energy right away? Is it the kind of stuff you can do for a while or are you doing the stuff that the energy just holds? And so that's how burnout relates to joy and energy and how we, if we don't know what our working geniuses and frustrations are it's just a crapshoot so you said burnout is something you experienced that's how you can articulate it what are you talking about did you have any like what

1:03:37Chris Cruz:what happened that you were going i'm having burnout not just a vacation well and what's amazing vacation i got burned out doing one of my working competencies in the middle okay so i would come to work every day wanting to invent and discern that's what i do i'm called the discriminating ideator. I like to come up with new ideas and evaluate them in real time. And I'd come to work every day. I love the people I worked with. I love what we did. And I'd come to, this is a great example. I was doing something that I thought mattered and I love the people I was with. I'd come to work excited. I never felt the Sunday blues.

1:04:08I was always like, Monday is fun. I'd get to work and I'd start working on stuff and somebody would go, Hey, we need reminding. We need galvanizing. You have to push them. This is not happening. This is not happening. and for 20 years I would go to work wanting to do one thing and I was constantly galvanizing and even though it wasn't even my lowest areas you can burn out because I was constantly doing something I was not meant to do all the time and that's how I realized I didn't need time off and you know what's funny what happens now is sometimes people will say hey you're really tired aren't you you should go home and I'm like no no no how about if you just give me a project that actually I love Wow so that it's a very different thing we always think we're telling somebody hey just take a vacation and they're like no I actually need to recharge myself well I just have downtime Wow that's fascinating you know what this relates to it relates to retirement too people think that retirement is like well I'll golf and I'll go to the beach every day it's like really retirement should be I'm gonna spend almost all of my time doing the things that give me joy and energy.

1:05:17And because one man's trash is another man's treasure, they'll say, why in the world are you starting a business in retirement? It's like, are you kidding? This is a party. And somebody else would say, why are you volunteering at the food bank every day in retirement? It's like, cause I love that kind of thing. But again, since one person's trash is another person's treasure, it only, we can decide what's going to be the right thing to do.

1:05:40Chris Cruz:it's fantastic gosh huge honor for me thank you so much pat i love this all right it's been great being here