Developing Your Y.O.D.A. to Make Better Decisions that Elevate Your Whole Life

0:00 The topics and opinions expressed in the following show are solely those of the hosts and their guests, and not those of W FORCY Radio, it's employees their affiliates. We make no recommendations or endorsements for radio show programs, services, or products mentioned on air or on our web. No liability explicit or implies shall be extended to W Forcy Radio, its employees or affiliates. Any questions or comments should be directed to those show hosts. Thank you for choosing W FORCY Radio. What's Working on Purpose? Anyway? Each week we ponder the answer to this question. People ache for meaning and purpose at work, to contribute their talents passionately and know their lives really matter. They crave being part of an organization that inspires them and helps them grow into realizing their highest potential.

0:45 Business can be such a force for good in the world, elevating humanity. In our program, we provide guidance and inspiration to help usher in this world we all want Working on Purpose. Now, here's your host, Doctor Release Cortez. Welcome back to the Working Purpose Program. Thanks John again this week. Great to have you. I'm your host, doctor Las Cortez, Alive from Dallas, Texas, which is home based. For me. If you've not met me yet and you don't know me, I'm a management consultant, an organizational logal therapist, speaker and author. My team and I at Last Cortes and Associates help companies to enliven their operations by articulating their purpose and building inspirational leaders and cultures activated by meeting and purpose to turn those companies from a flatline EKG to a vibrant workplace. There, people are intrinsically motivated to perform with their best, grown to their floor potential, and are committed to stay and help deliver on the company's mission. You can learn more about us now we can work together at Elis Cortez dot com. Now. Getting in today's program with us is doctor Sheila Olsen, who is a behavioral geneticist.

1:46 She is a Senior scientist at the Institute for Applied Research in Youth at Tufts University. You're visiting Assistant Professor at the John Johns Hopkins University School of Education and an adjunct Assistant Professor of Pediatrics at the George washing To University School of Medicine and Health Sciences. She's slightly an over achiever. In other words, we'll be talking today about the book she co offered with doctor Jim Lair called Wise Decisions, a science based approach to making better choices. Today from Inglewood, Colorado, Doctor Olsen, welcome to Working on Purpose. It's a delight to be here. Thank you so much. You're grateful, so so welcome, and I'm so happy. You know. I want to command you and Jim for this beautiful book. I have this really weird thing that I do, Sheila, is I read my guest books cover to cover in preparation for the show. That's so lovely. I know that I've heard that a million times, or at least maybe four hundred times. But the reason I do that, Sheila, is because this show is my catalyzing force to continue my own growth, expansion and development so I can be a better service to people that I serve. And I want you to know that I got some really powerful things from your book, not the least of which really recognizing who and the what inner voice am I listening to? Because it wasn't mine. I recognize, I went, oh, no, no, wonder. So I want to say thank you for this. Thank you very much, thank you.

3:10 So let's kick this off here. I really what I like to do on the show here is, as you could tell from some of the notes I sent you ahead of times, I like to kind of engage over some of the content that really spoke to me. Because the show is curated, so we kind of build on what we've already discussed over the last eight years we've been doing this. So I want to start with how you opened the book. You say, because so much is writing on the decisions we make throughout life. Putting the decision making process under a microscope with the intent of better understanding how wise decisions are represents the central focus of this book. Sounds good to me, and it really really I was sobered by that remark thinking about the sheer number of decisions that we make and to your point, how they completely influence the quality and the results of our lives. Yes, yes, and there are the micro decisions and the macro decisions, and the micro decision and lead into the macro decisions um that you know, the deciding what we have for breakfast or how to manage a you know, a small moment at home, deciding whether to exercise in the morning, um can make a difference in our mood state because of our biochemistry and so forth, and how we act intentionally act or or reactively react to situations that happen throughout the course of the day. So at all it's cumulative. It all adds up, and that's an important thing to to know. And Jim, who unfortunately can't be here, he's one of the most wonderful human beings on planet Earth.

4:34 And he's been honestly my most important teacher and mentor um kind of post academia. He's helped me bring my behavioral genetic my neurobiological science research that people have a hard time reading with a you know, ten syllable words that narcilepsy bring it to people to help people change their lives. They're how they think, how they behave the lives of their children. That's my particular space is early you know, childhood development and because there's a tremendous opportunity in that, in that chapter of life to really create habits and patterns that stick. So decision making is an area that has not been you know thoroughly you know, illuminated.

5:20 There's business decision making. There are lots of books in that space, but in terms of personal decision making, that was really an area that was right to go into and just really take the process out of the closet and into the light and examine the pieces that go into it and um. And so this was the genesis of the book was really thinking about what can we write together that is just organically emanates from conversations we normally have about people and the meaning they make and of events in their lives, growth mindset. And then Gym's work with seventeen world number one athletes and his you know, starting the Johnson Johnson Human Reformance Institute. How can we be our very very best selves? And what are the steps to get there? So we hope to create a process and a framework in this book to help to help make that happen and just make it clear and have some clear steps and written exercises in the workbook elements of the book to help people really to take time to be intentional about thinking through things. Because if we don't know where we want to go, we don't we're not going to get anywhere. And we are definitely going to get to the place where we talk through your your your formula, your process, becus and that'll be just being o ladies and gentlemen. I'll be in the third segment song for hanging with us for that. So, you know, you have a it's very interesting to me what you talk about here when you say that, you know, we human beings, there are

6:54 a few things that get in the way of us and making good constructive decisions that produce, you know, the quality lives and the results that we want. You say a few about what what are some of the things that hamper us a way of making good decisions. The things that hamper us are you know, multiful. There's there's the automatic element of decision making. We just do things that we've seen the adults in our lives do. Over time, Um, we we learn. There's a wonderful quote, don't worry that your children aren't listening to you, worry that they're always watching you. So how adults when we were children were watching the adults in our lives, whether our parents or grandparents, are the important adult figures in our lives and how they how they act and reacted to situations going on. And we through epigenetics, you know, nature operates via nurture. The things that we see, the things that we take in, uh, you know, really become a part of our behavioral code, our behavioral patterns. So as we wire up um our decision making processes, they're not necessarily intentional. I don't know if you had a parent or anyone who talked to you about your decision making process when you're a child or a young adult or even your twenties or thirties. Whereas just to be aware that we're making decisions is you know, that's really the starting point. But but the other pieces are our brains are fiction making machines.

8:22 We tell ourselves the stories that we want to hear and tend to make decisions in align with those stories that validate our stories and validate the decision we want to make in the first place. And so um this kind of confirmation bias um you know, wanting to wanting to go in the direction anyway, and then finding the things that that validate that decision and provide data a data set for that for that decision. That's probably the you know, those are the two most important elements that we that we wrote about. And so again it takes us or why are is taking a step back to think about things through a broader lens to really unpack some of those elements a the childhood element, but also you know the things that we what do we think we want versus what do we really want? Yeah, you did a beautiful job of really detailing on the book, by the way, so encourage our listeners and viewers to when they go to get the book to really give that a hard reak because I thought it was very, very discerning, very delineating. And then what I also appreciated, which really this really started to really make me understand the import of your book, Sheila. You wrote, the whole point of decision making at all levels is to continually fine tune and fortify the process so that our lives increasingly represent who we most want to be in life.

9:41 Why is decision making sets to stage for us to authentically and powerfully embody the way in which we show up in the world. That is so powerful? Thank you, And it's you look at the science. I'm a behavior of geneticist. My PhD was on a big twin stety looking at how nature and nurture opera together, and it always nature via nurture. It's not nature versus nurture. It's the the experiences that we have, the environments we're in shape, how we how we become and who, you know, how how we become who we become. And we're twenty four to seven, three sixty five day year work in process on this front. So this fine tuning element um is vital because we're not we're not just sort of stuck with a set of DNA. When we're gonna you know, we're going to have a fine you know, a kind of defined range of scope in our life. We have possibility to to expand in the directions that really you know, where our energy is the most vital and vibrant. When we move in that direction, we grow, We change, We change our mindsets, we change our behavior, we change all of those things. So and in creating new ways of making decisions and patterns, it's really about behavior change and creating new habits. And that takes repetition, repetition, repetition because you know, trying on, you know, something for size, a new workout routine. Let's just say you know something to to make it, to make it simple. It doesn't you know, our muscles don't grow after one day in the gym. We have

11:13 to go for you know, at least a few months, but we start feeling the effects earlier than that. But to make behavior change, to create behavior change and change in mindset change that sticks, it takes a longer period of time and intentionality. Which is why we have the workbook elements in the in the book, because when we write things down with our hand on a piece of paper, it really does engage the whole brain, the default mode network, the executive function. It helps us integrate things in a more realistic way. And just on that fine tuning element. One thing that I have done over time, this is all the habit. You know, habit literature have cues. Queues are really really important to remember things, so sticky notes about your Yoda code which will get into your own decision advisor. U have reminders around that help you remember and dock onto concepts that are important for you to be your very best self. To ground yourself in a moment where it may be a little bit heated, breathe, you are just where you need to be right now. I have that on the back door going out of the door, but it is you know, we don't have control over a lot of things, and like things happen and they can't happen randomly, and they make it us sideways like a like a tidal way. Um. So we don't have the choice about how we react to them, and we can ground ourselves in breath and be where our feet are and decide to act rather than react. You know, in that pause is Victor Frankle. Until you've

12:46 read Man search for meaning of the power of the pause. That's where our freedom lies. We can make a decision in that power of the pause. But we don't do that. We just instinctively react and and jump back out at something that we haven't really had a moment to process beautifully rendered. Yeah, the next thing I wanted to get into, which I think is delightful. One of the one of the one of the many delightful things about your book, of course, is your concept of our yoda, which is of course your own decision advisor. Um. And I appreciate you start of talking about that already, but maybe this is a time if you could kind of introduce the Yoda concept to us. Sure, so, inside of all of us we have a private inner voice. This is the voice that is the most powerful of all of the elements of who we are. This is the voice that can either be a powerful coach or it can be a really powerful adversary ally or adversary or the two, you know, the two kind of key terms. But we can. We can. The stories we tell ourselves about things that happen, and the messages that come through our minds, even the nanosecond, the you know, the an instant flash, can shape how we look at things. So rumination, for instance, that always brings us, at whatever age and stage, down a rabbit hole. Being able to have that voice and train that voice, which is possible because of the science that we just talked about, be a coach. Be a coach who tells

14:20 you, you know, breathe, slow down, take a moment, step back, reframe, and and really give us the capacity to provide objectivity in inner stories that often get wildly subjective and caught up in moods and caught up in things that aren't even nearly the truth. Right. So it's easy for that to happen, But the problem is when that happens inside of us, it affects our mood state, our stress levels. At Johns Hopkins, my major focus was was stress and what happens, you know, chronic stress, particularly over time. But stress cortisol narrows the purview. It keeps us in this kind of locked lane. And when the stress response happens, that is that is typically with rumination or with kind of negative thinking, you're not giving ourselves space to really think broadly through this kind of three hundred and sixty degree lens um. We get locked into stories that are negative and that are that are that are deleterious to us, to our biochemistry, to our mood, to our gene expression patterns, to how we operate, and and that's the problem. So but that on the flip side, the positive element is that we have the capacity and science tells us to with repetition and training and intentionality, we can make that inner voice into a force of good for us, a force that builds us up, that helps us, uh, you know,

15:52 be kind with ourselves, give ourselves grace, have a growth mindset, give ourselves space to unpack things. Not feel like, you know, not feel like we're we're stuck and hopeless because we made one bad decision. And by the way, we all make bad decisions a series of them sometimes. And you know the most important thing is to learn and and for parents talk about that with your children. I've got three boys, twenty eighteen and sixteen, and we really just try to talk about the things that we do well and the things that we haven't done well. I think it's particularly important for adults to just be human with their children and talk about, you know, maybe you know what went wrong, why we're how would I have thought about this differently sitting where I am right now. It's equally as important to talk about the bad decisions and the good decisions. But we learn over time, and it's like shaping our clay and molding our clay through the science of epigenetics and building those neural pathways that become the default mode for us. AH so much there, Sheila um let's scrab our first break. I want to let our listeners and viewers just kind of think about what you you you've said so run yoda, and kind of where we make decisions from how they can actually impact the quality of our lives. I'm your host, doctor Elise Cortez.

17:06 We were on air with doctor Sheila Olsen. She's the co author of Wise Decisions as science based approach to making better choices. We're talking about some of the foundational elements of her work and the book After the Brick. We're going to get into first the four Literacies of decision making. State with us. We'll be right back. Doctor Elise Cortez is a management consultant specializing in meaning and purpose. An inspirational speaker and author, she helps companies visioneer for a greater purpose among stakeholders and develop purpose inspired leadership and meaning infused cultures that elevate fulfillment, performance, and commitment within the workforce. To learn more or to invite a lease to speak to your organization, please visit her at Elise Cortez dot com. Let's talk about how to get your employees working on purpose.

18:07 This is working on Purpose with doctor Elise Cortez. To reach our program today or to open a conversation with a lease, send an email to a lease a l I se at Elise Cortez dot com. Now back to working on Purpose. Thanks for stating with us. Before we get back on the program, I do want to share with you some exciting news here, which is I've been talking about for a bit now. We launched the Purpose and Enjoy Tour in March of this year. This is a collaboration with Jolie an organization that teaches mindful practices to build happy, healthy, resilient worlds, and my firm, Elise Cortez and Associates that activates meaning a purpose in company culture and leadership to increase fulfillment, performance and retention. Together we cracked this crazy idea to visit thirty three cities across the United States starting in March and finishing Virginia Beach and October to find our trial and of the people that I actually want to elevate their lives by and their businesses by cultivating meeting purpose and joy.

19:06 So you can find our list of cities and our planned events at Gusto dashnow dot com events. There's a tour tab there with all the cities delineated, So check out your what we have planned for you, reserv on on your calendar and register and we will see you there if you're just now joining the program today. My guest is doctor Sheila Olsen, who is a behavioral geneticist. She is a Senior scientist at the Institute for Applied Research in Youth at Tufts University, visiting Assistant professor at the Johns Hopkins University School of Education, and an adjunct Assistant Professor of Pediatrics at the George Washington University School of Medicine and Health. I'm your host, doctor Elis QUOTEZ. So I want to talk more now if we can. I want to dig into there were so many elements of your book that I just thought gave me so much more around this notion of decision making. One of them is you talk about there's four literacies to decision making. If you could talk about each one of them kind of briefly and the buckets that are under each, I think that will our listeners in viewers really understand just how much goes into this. Sure, absolutely, thank you. So our chapter one of the book is called Health ignites wise decision making, and that's because when we are not healthy either mentally, physically, emotionally or spiritually and spiritually we define as our highest order values and beliefs, we can't make the decisions we want to look back on and feel that we're proud of over the long game of life. So it's important to be now break down all these different four buckets. But it's one important thing

20:37 to say upfront is that these four buckets are all integrated below the skin, the same molecules that are affecting mental health or affecting physical health or emotions. You know, they all they all interact, so we can't think of them as discrete buckets. It's a really integrative mind body system. But starting with the most basic our physical health or physical literacy, being physically active and doing something with our bodies every day. We're mammals. We were built to move our bodies in order to use our brains properly, and so doing something physically active every day stimulates this powerful exercise biochemistry that boosts mood, health, creativity, um, you know, decreases inflammatory factors, it does all these things that you know, it's more powerful than than things that we go to the drug store to get. So doing something physically active, whatever it is for you or you can engage and is very very important. Mental mental literacy is really about doing our work to be able to have a growth mindset, which means meaning making in the appropriate way. There's a of literature on meaning making, and it is not the events in our lives themselves that make a difference in how how they how they resonate with us. It's the meaning we make out of them. Yes, when we look at an event and decide,

22:07 oh, my goodness is a catastrophe. It's never going to be the same. My life is over. That is going to you know, that brings on cortisol, that brings on inflammatory factors, that brings on these these these biochemical elements that just stuck us down into the rabbit hole. Um. We can also look at the very same event as a boy. That was awful, but you know what, I'm going to learn from it, and I would do this differently next time around, or what can I do at this point now to take some little piece of that and and and and make my life better and make the life of someone else better. Um. So the meaning making piece is massive, and studies show my dear friend Mary Helen Emordino yang at USC has done a lot of work on adolescence and meaning making and what that means later on in life. And the ones who are able to make adaptive positive meaning as you can imagine, their their health is better, their decisions are better, they have better outcomes across the board. It's um you know, making adaptive meaning of situations whatever they are as is incredibly important.

23:10 So that's mental literacy, emotional literacy as being emotionally intelligent um, knowing how to recognize our own emotions, understand them, put a label on them, and and express them and regulate them. This is you know, a lot of the work of my friend Mark Brackett, Yale School of Emotional Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence, is in this book. He's he's mentioned several times, but he's he's in you know, several four thousand schools across the country helping adults and young people understand what their emotions are. Because basically, our emotions are they are the palette, you know, they're the canvas that is primed that all of our cognitive thoughts and ideas and actions and reactions, it's all, you know, it's they all stem from this basis of our emotional being. And our emotions are not just these sort of fluffy things there, their data, and they're the first things that wire up in our mind body systems. Is as infants, as young people, and our emotions really come directly from our viscera and our organ systems and they project up the outside expression of our emotions as our feelings. So being able to understand what those are and it's you know, may not it's not a good idea to make a big decision when we're either really emotionally up or really emotionally down and being understand that I need to make this decision. It's not the right time. Maybe I write it down as something that I need to think about but at a different time. That's emotional literacy. And then spiritual literacy is really this our

24:41 highest and our most important values and beliefs about what is important in life and how we want to show up. And that's really the big driver. That's the gas that comes from the inside. That's jam. Yeah, intrinsic motivation. Him is very well known. He was actually the first. He published something in the Harvard Business Review decades ago. But the pyramid of spiritual literacy is on the top and then it goes mental, emotional, and physical at the bottom. And so if we develop from the bottom up, we become extraordinary from the top down because it is those the spiritual dimension and those big values and those those big those most important beliefs of ours are the things that that keep us going over time, the things we care about the most and believe in. And so this hooks back into our yoda, which is it if you look in our book, there's there's a figure with all of these dimensions with YODA right middle, your own advisor. So if we want to make good decisions, really being emotionally, literate, mentally and physically and the spiritually, really thinking about all of these dimensions and what they are for us, what we do where we can fine tune bring those right down into the middle, and then we have our you know, your own decision advisor YODA, which is a superpower like none others and just as a behavioral genetic system, mom of boys, UM, when we when we wire up these skills

26:15 and these thought patterns and these behaviors is automatic. And young people, UM, this is just a superpower they'll have for the rest of their lives. It will pay the biggest dividends. And we're learning across life and we never we never stop learning and growing at any age or stage. But it's particularly powerful in young people and particularly with all the things going on in their lives right now that we never had to face. UM. So yeah, and it's it's a very different world that they're navigating versus us. But when we have UM, we know who we are at the core and can recognize decisions and stay healthy and and keep our eye on the things that are important.

26:56 It really uh it takes a lot of the pressure off and helps navigate what can be an otherwise very tricky course. Yes, well said, it's of course, you know, I can't argue with anything that you say. I aligned completely with that, UM. And then you know, if we now go on going back from you know, these four dimensions here, Now, I just if you would just very briefly, because I want I want people to be able to go and do the stuff in there in the book here. But I think one of the things that I really got a lot of value from your book too was equipping the Yoda with the right stuff here this using the betting process, and you talk about how the decision making process can be greatly improved when viewed through seven lenses. And then of course you have some very distinctive prompts in your book and you know work worksheets in your book to be able to help the reader to do that. But if you would just go through each of the seven lenses, that would be great, just kind of what they are, UM. And then I want to keep building on that right well, So just to start off the seven lenses. There's a lot of overlap in the seven lenses, and you'll see this as I read through the list um. But we have the first lenses, the best self, best moral self, our life's purpose, our tombstone legacy, how we want to be remembered by those who knew us the best and loved us the most, our core values and beliefs, our personal credo, and our ultimate mission in life. And so as you can see, there's a lot of there's a tremendous amount of overlap. But taking the time to just pick up a pen and a piece of paper and write down if you're facing particularly

28:27 a big decision, thinking about it through all of these lenses, and and thinking about it not only in terms of how it will affect us and our lives, but also the lives of those that were closest to you. What's the ripple effect out of our decision? But it really gets back to, you know, the the endgame here is to make the kinds of decisions that at the very end of our lives. The tombstone legacy is representative, this one that we're going to look back on and be proud of. And we can have full information up front you know, we can make a decision one day and then something happens the next day that materially changes you know, what we would have done. We can only do the best that we can at the time. And we when we keep those those higher order elements in mind of who we want to be, how we want to show up, how do we want to leave the world. What do we really want to teach our children? UM, what's the legacy we want to leave behind? Why why are we here? You know, what's our purpose here on earth?

29:33 Those are the things that um, if you look at the wisdom literature and you know, the writings of eighty ninety hundred centenarians talk about you know, I had X number of zeros in my bank account and I had a had a beautiful jet in all these vacation homes. It's really about the the connection with people. There are people that they love that both the both the u the elements of joy that they remember and regrets are around, you know, being there or not being there, showing up in the way they wanted to, not showing up in the way they wanted to. So kind of got going forward out into the future and then backward mapping to where we are now to think about, you know, what are these things that we care about the most, What is this decision going to look like, how is it going to feel in a month, a year, or ten years, twenty years. And going through the process of just writing down what these things are just helps us take it out of our minds and out onto paper where we can really legitimately process it in a different way. One thing that is not in here that I have found incredibly valuable too is thinking about the people that I rely on for They're my role models for making good decisions. I just I value how they operate in the world, and I have a go to to my Yoda advisory board or something along those sides. But I've got a

31:04 handful of people that I just I know, I know I'm going to get, you know, heartfelt, thoughtful, intelligent perspective from them that I can make into my own body of knowledge and integrate in to really think about it in the right way, because it's hard to think about everything at once, even if we're we know a lot, it's hard to you know, it's hard to have the perspective that gives us the ability to have the spaciousness to be able to really think broadly about particularly big decisions, so that having a team of people is very important. Yes, and I think I really got so much about that whole perspective set of lenses that was very powerful for me.

31:55 And what you just started, what you were just speaking to there to me, Sheila, I wanted to be able to read this beautifu passage because I think it really speaks to what you were just getting at there, you said in the book. Humanity's greatest asset is its capacity for the kind of deep reflective consciousness that gives rise to personal transformation. It is a capacity to be aware that one is aware, to be conscious of what one is thinking or saying, both privately and publicly, and to be fully conscious of one's own awareness. Reflective consciousness is the essential difference that separates humans from all other species. Yes, that's what you're what I think you were really speaking to there, that capacity to be able to reflect on that level. We have that capacity, but it takes it takes stopping. You know, we run around, We rush around our lives, you know, doing things and having disc beings and feeling instead of taking a break from human doing and getting into human being to think and reflect. That helps us really consolidate all these different levels of intellectual, emotional, psychological, physical pieces of um you know, who we are, who want to be? It? Just stopping and thinking and reflecting is vital to being able to to grow and learn. I'm curious at least, how so the seven lens process for you? Forgive me, you're asking a question, but how did how did that help you think about the decision making process differently than you had previously? But because it really made

33:30 me get present to this, you know, this reflective consciousness. And you know, if I think about, well, who do I really want to be in the world? How do I want to leave this world? Boy? When when you take your lens up from that versus you know, whe am I freaked out about now? Or what's today? What's the problem today? Or you know, or what's this person care about? Or what am I what's happening with this client or whatever? When I take the lens and I elevate it, I'd like to use that, you know, the elevational piece to me that just went gosh. In fact, I will tell you even now, I had a conversation just today with someone in a very different way. I chose to behave in a different way in part because of your book. Yeah, and I said, because I this is the person I want to be. I want to be this more higher functioning, capable, better relationship, better results person. Thank you, thank you, thank you.

34:22 That's that's beautiful, and it's that's why Jim and I wrote the book. You know, we just want to we want to want to help. I got it and it's beautiful. So listeners and viewers, you might want to check it out while we go in this next break here, go to Amazon check it out. It's time for our last break here. I'm your host, Doctor Elie's Cortez. We've been in the air with doctor Sheila Olson. She's the co author of Wise Decisions, a science based approach to making better choices. We've been talking a bit about some of the meat of the book that really gives it its value and flavor. Stay with us. Will be right back. Doctor Elise Cortez is a management consultant specializing in meaning and purpose. An inspirational speaker and author, she helps companies visioneer for greater purpose among stakeholders and develop purpose inspired leadership and meaning infused cultures that elevate fulfillment, performance and commitment within the workforce. To learn more or to invite a lease to speak to your organization, please visit her at Elise Cortez dot com.

35:30 Let's talk about how to get your employees working on purpose. This is Working on Purpose with doctor Elise Cortez. To reach our program today or to open a conversation with Elise, send an email to elease a l I se at Elise Cortez dot com. Now back to working on Purpose. Thanks for staying with us, and welcome back to working on Purpose. I mentioned in the last break that we've launched this Purpose and Enjoy tour. The two latest books that I have that are part of that tour are The Great Revitalization, How activating meeting and Purpose can radically enliven your business. And this is for leaders to learn how to build elevating and high performing cultures and leadership. The other latest book is called Coloring Life, How Lass invites us to live more vibrant lives, which helps people navigating loss transform it to growth and vitality. You can find them both on Amazon if you're just now joining us. My guest is doctor Sheila Olsen. She's a behavioral geneticist and the co author of Wise Decisions, a science based approach to making better choices. I'm your host, doctor Lee Quartez. So for this last bit here, I wanted just to get into some of the some of the ways that to the applications and exercises that you have on the book here to kind of give listeners and viewers a taste. And I was very very intrigued with your tombstone exercise. Can you talk to us a bit about that? Absolutely, But the tombstone exercise is

37:02 relates back to what we were just talking about in the previous segment about who we want to be? So what if we can forward map, look out into the future decades and think about what do we want written on our tombstone? How do we want to show up? What are those things that we most want to convey to the people who loved us the most and know us the best. What's really important? And it's not the things that we often feel you know that we've that our society is often chasing in this world. It's the basic things rounded in human relationships, love, purpose, making our world a better place. That's like the meat and potatoes of from an evolutionary standpoint, how we've survived as human beings, not going it alone, but with the notion of collective efficacy, where one plus one equals three stronger together than apart. And so the Tombstone legacy. And I've been working with some high school students actually teaching a class based on this book, and it's been fascinating to work with them, these incredible young people who are thinking about what these things are early on in life, you know, when many adults haven't really unpacked these things. They're sort of going through their lives doing and reacting, but not with the intentionality that we need to make sure that that Tombstone legacy is what we wanted to be because time time is our asset, and the energy that we are able to deploy into the things that we care about,

38:32 that's you know, it's priceless. So that's the Tombstone legacy is going out in the forward so we can backward map to make sure that we're on the right route, that our knav system is set to the right destination, and we can course correct along the way is needed, not too far off. Maybe what we were speaking about before, the other other O the other break, but beautifully well illustrated. I love that you're working with youth. By the way, I also do work with youth on on strength finding and also meeting and purpose too. It's just it's so fulfilling in their it's beautiful, and I think it's incredibly necessary, right, Yeah. Necessary. So I wanted to see if you would also just share just a few of the summary of the point from the summary wisdom from Yoda. There's in the last chapter, there's just I think there's like thirty seven points or something crazy like that. So, so, you know, jam packed with value, but maybe just a few that really speak to you around around the details around Yoda, around the summary wisdom, just some of those details that we haven't talked about so far in the show. Yeah, I mean, the summary wisdom is, it doesn't matter if we get to the top of a mountain, if we have to climb over dead bodies on the way up. It's really about who we are as people. Being kind to other people. How we treat other people shapes how other people treat us, and it shapes our story and our mood and everything that extends from that. So and it starts with also being kind to ourselves. The summary wisdom you know was really in the

40:06 first chapter around the health piece. If we're not kind to ourselves, if we don't take care of ourselves, nurture our bodies as the vehicles take us around life, nurture our minds and our souls and our our emotions. UM. You know we uh, you know, we can't give ourselves the the spaciousness nor the grace needed to really navigate life um successfully. And you know, relative to Yoda, you know the the you know, there are three basic things that we if we look at all the literature over time on brain health and brain health is of course um corel. You can't take mind body health and put them separately, because they both in a relay and they shape one another. But there are three major factors that um, that that help us do better with what we have from a biological standpoint over to time.

41:00 One is doing something physically active every day. That exercise biochemistry boosts everything, not only health and moved the creativity and innovation and all the things that matter. Having friends connected, doubling down on our people, surrounding ourselves with people who feel like sunlight, who support us. That's incredibly important as well. There's a biochemical story to that too, related to oxytocin. But having a reliable, strong friend group that supports us and is there for us up just I want to throw this in. The Surgeon General just came out with a with a report a couple of weeks ago initiative on loneliness and isolation and the health risk if loneliness and isolation is massive and with you know, any age or stage again, and social media exacerbates that. But as particularly as we grow older, you know, making sure that we have the people around who are supporting us in the way that we can we can rely on so exercise friends of The third one gets around to kind of the whole premise of this book around purpose, and we're in a purpose having something bigger than ourselves to get out of bed for every time, something that's motivating from the inside, that keys off that spiritual dimension that what do we want to do, how do we want to show up? What do we care about? And connecting with other people around that shared system of values and beliefs, having a bigger purpose than us. It's a motivating factor like like none else. And so when we get that recipe right to do something active, stay active, take

42:32 care of our take care of ourselves, take care of our friends, or nurture those friendships that nurture us, and double down on purpose. That's that's the recipe for success in life, and success that is not success measured in bank account. It's so much bigger than that. It's not quantifiable. Completely agree, And I really didn't want to hear you. I love that you asked me the question of how you're a book and material has impacted my life, But I would also love to hear of another example of someone maybe who's used this material and how it's improved their lives. If you have an example, well, um, I'm trying to think I've got a handful of different examples. I was. I'm going to go to my students actually, because adults that I've spoken with, they've thought about the health piece and really doubled down on thinking about their Yoda codes and and what is really important for the young people that I've worked with, just be at this sensitive period and development these, you know, the childhood and adolescents are the periods and brain and body development that are where new habits are the likeliest to stick for life and just become these automatic habits, just like brushing our teeth or driving a car.

43:50 You know, just we do. We do them without an thinking about it. So to to sit with these amazing young people who have taken the time to do their writing, do the reflective processes, to think about their lives, things that have gone well, things that haven't gone well, what they want to do, helping them, helping them craft, not craft their Yota codes, but just reinforcing, helping them reinforce the importance of their Yota codes around their purpose. I just, you know, that has been so expansive for me because I feel like it is just amplified human potential in this way that will illuminate not only them, but you know all the others who they go out and touch. They're all headed off to their juniors and seniors.

44:43 Most of them are heading off to college next year, but there are many of them are doing projects based on the book. They've written curriculum, they've done sports coaching manuals, They've done different things that are going to have an impact in a way that is so desperately needed at this time. And you know, I'm fifty seven years old. I love my work. I was in finance. Beforehand, I was a portfolio manager. I did a whole different set of things and I switched changed courses twenty plus years ago. And I love what I do and I love the people I do it with. And so people are really good when they do what they love and love what they do. And that doesn't mean loving what you do. Is it hard sometimes and challenging, and you know it should be hard because hart is fun, you know hert is fun. Also, we get through challenges and we we grow from it. But seeing these young people taking the ball and running with it and phrasing things in their own way that makes sense for them.

45:43 But holding the principles and the basics intact, boy, just make my heart just wants to you know, Nick, right, I know to live and that in that space is pretty great. I love it too. So well, it's amazing how this show goes. You know, we we this show is listen to you by people around the world, Sheila, and most people don't listen to it or listening to the topic that of course they've chosen opt into. Or there are people that really are out to create a culture in the workplace where people actually want to show up, give it their best and stay and create those leaders that lead us to our greatness. We do business at Betters of the World. What would you like to leave our listeners and viewers with? Go shine your light, Go double down on your Yoda code. Take care of yourself. Those are the two main things. Take care of yourself, don't feel guilty about it, prioritize it, and and sit back and really think about your Yoda code, those five or six words that describe who you want to be and how you want to leave those around you feeling. And then go out and just unabashedly shine your light. M That sounds good to me, Sheila, I thank you so much for coming into my world, for writing this book, for coming on the air with me and sharing with it. It's been a delight to get to know you and share your work. Thanks for being on working on a purpose. Thank you. I'm so grateful to be on today. And uh, I appreciate you Alis for all the work that you're doing. Thank you. I'm so glad to know you. One when they had happened. Sometimes she was when I when I connect with my guests so and you know, sometimes they get

47:14 a knock on their door when I'm actually in their city. Sores open anytime. Okay, good good listener's viewers, if you want learn learn more about this remarkable woman, doctor Stela Olson, the work she does centering the how nurture environment shapes nature which is DNA, and how we can create context in sport, at school and nature settings that unlock the potential of our youth start rights. In her website, it's www dot Sheila Olson Walker dot com. Let me spell that for you. So Sheila s h e I l A Olson is O h L S s O N and then Walker w A l k E R Sheila also Olson walker dot com. Last week, if you missed the live show, you can always catch it be a recorded podcast.

47:59 We were on the air with doctor John Schinnerer, the host of the Evolved Caveman podcast, talking about the work he does to coachman de great connection, happiness and success and really amazing pearls in that conversation, very very illuminating and the lightening stuff. Next week we'll be on the air with Kent Gregoire hearing about his perspective on stakeholder capitalism. See you there. Remember that work as an integral and important part of our lives and can be one of the best adventures and means of realizing our potential in making the impact we crave. So let's work on Purpose. We hope you've enjoyed this week's program. Be sure to tune into Working on Purpose featuring your host, doctor Elise Cortez, each week on W four CY. Together, we'll create a world where business operates conscientiously. Leadership inspires and passion performance, and employees are fulfilled in work that provides the meaning and purpose they crave. See you there, Let's work on Purpose.