Elevating Vitality at The Viktor Frankl Meaning Academy

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 are affiliates. We make no recommendations or endorsements for radio show, program, services, or products mentioned on air or on our web. No liability explicit or implies shall be extended to W Forcy Radio or 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 and Purpose program. They're donating again this week. Great to have you. I'm your host, Doctor Elise Quartez joining you a live from Dallas, which is home base for me. If we've not met yet, you don't know me. I'm a management consultant, organizational logo therapist, speaker and author. My team and I at Eleis Quartez and Associates help companies enliven their operations by articulating their purpose and building inspirational leaders and cultures activated by meaning and purpose to turn those companies from a flatline EKG to a vibrant workplace. There people are intrinsically motivated to perform at their best, grown to their highest potential, and are committed to stay and help deliver on the company's mission. We learn more about us and now we can work together at a least Quartez dot com. Now let's get into the program today.

1:42 We have with us today three logo therapist and co founders of the Victor Frankel meaning Academy of Meaning. They are doctor Bahu Haalev also affectionately known as b Doctor Dan France and me, doctor Elise Quartez. Will be discussing our perspectives on some of the key issues confronting individual and organizations today. How long will therapy helps address those issues and the work we are doing at the Victor Frankel Academy of Meaning to elevate meaning, purpose and resilience in the lives of our clients. Be joined us from Denver, Colorado, and Dan joins us from self ben in Indianapolis. Guys, welcome to working on Purpose. Good night. Are you to be with you again? Good morning? Is it great to be on the other side of the mic. Well, we're going to interview you because you're part of the Meaning Academy as well. So since you both have your own respective shows, let's do this first. Let's let's let I purpose. They did not give a lot of introduction to either of you because I wanted you to do it yourself and your own, your own way. So let's first do introductions so that our listeners and viewers know who they're with. Doctor Dan, Will you go first? Absolutely so, Doctor daniel A. Frands. You can find my website at daniel A Franz dot com. It's much easier to just go to doctor Dan. I am a clinician and consultant and coach in private practice here in the South in Indiana area.

3:01 But with the power of zoom and all these other technologies, I work with people all over the world. My passion for meaning has a lot to do with doctor Victor Frankel's man search for Meaning, and ever since reading that of dive very deep into that to try to help individuals, groups and organizations really find a way to first understand, but then to bring the concept of meaning to their lives and to their days. Ah. And by the way, you've got a great radio show voice, right, thank you, b What about you? I am most people choose be so I am here in Denver, Colorado, where a family and I moved from Israel about three to four years ago. At this point, I am a rabbi by training, as well as a doctoral degree in ministry and in local therapy, and I am very passionate about, as both of you, the work of doctor Victor Frankel. I've been really touched by his work personally for about twenty five years at this point and professionally really incorporating it into my both work as a rabbi and then now as a logotherapist. And I wanted to be a part of scaling his mission and his message and was fortunate enough to be brought into alignment with you two great souls and now we are doing the work of scaling this important mission and message of doctor Victor Frankel, meaning centered not only therapy.

4:35 I want to say it. I can't say strongly enough. I know I speak for all of us. Therapy is a component of it, but it's also we call logo philosophy a way of living and being in the world where meaning and purpose is at the center of our lives. And I work with individual clients as well as organizations, bringing both his work as well as Maybe you can see behind me if you're looking or listening, I'll tell you it's the Enneagram. I'm a passionate practitioner of the Enneagram and ancient roadmap, and I think it works really synonymously with the insights of doctor Frankel. So listeners and viewers, as you can tell, I'm hanging out some real slackers here, right. These guys are both really slackers if you don't know me, listeners and viewers. So my work is really my PhDs in human development.

5:21 I'm a logo therapist like my two fellow comrades are, and my work is really in management consulting to activate meaning a purpose inside organizations. But I will say that my work. My attraction to logotherapy really began in my early mid twenties when I had the great opportunity to live abroad in Spain in Brazil. Great life. You know, I'm twenty six years old with a live in made so for a gardener problem in the world, no real cares in the world, And that is where I discovered that we humans actually don't do well when we're just consuming life. We actually need to be of service. And that's where my hunger and my appetite for Victor Franko's work was really ignited. So that's where it started, and ever since I've been on the path of working to be able to help organizations to activate meeting a purpose. So that's where it all began for the three of us. Let us next visit, if we can our perspectives on what we're seeing in the world in terms of some of the biggest, the bigger issues that are confronting individuals. First, what are you guys seeing in your work, your experiences? What are we up against? Sure? I actually, at least I was writing down the word you just used. We're not at our best when we're consuming life.

6:29 And I think that's what I see a lot in my clinical and coaching work is we live in a culture that really is bent on encouraging us, motivating us, pushing us to consume and consume so that companies and corporations or whatever it is can continue to post three percent growth that's been going on for about one hundred years now, at some point. Three percent growth every year is unsustainable as a human being, right, we cannot support that. And I think that is what many individuals are struggling struggling with is determining, you know, where is my meaning in life? After I've consumed everything I can possibly consume, after I've bought everything I've been told to purchase, why am I still not happy? And they eventually wind up with their physicians saying, I'm not just feeling that great? And what do physicians do. I love our physicians, our medical staff out there, but they do what physicians were trained to do, and they make prescriptions, they write prescriptions, and it still doesn't work. And so well as we know, I think meaning is the answer. But right now, I believe that the consumerism and b and I've talked many times about the nihilistic attitudes that are starting to filter into the culture are some of the biggest problems we face. Thanks Dan, what about you be? What do you see in Well, Dan's taken the meaning he's chief meeting officer in the Victor Franklmani Academy, you're, of course chief purpose officer.

7:47 And that leads me with chief resilience officer, because our mantradmission is meaning purpose and resilience, and so I'm going to touch on resilience, although of course we all deal with all three of those, So resilience, resilience, resilience, resilience. I love Victor Frankel. I love his mission. I love his message because it was not born out of privilege, you know, a very popular word today. It was not born in comfort, for sure. It was born in a very difficult period in human history. It was actually born prior to the Holocaust, but certainly battle tested, proven out in the horrors of Auschwitz, Treblinka, where else. It was in four different concentration camps. And he demonstrated, not only preach, but demonstrated resilience, a life of resilience. And I see today this is the number one thing people are seemed to be lacking across the board. We live at a time in human history, where we've never been safer, we've never been more comfortable, We've never had more, you know, at our fingertips than we do today. Now you wouldn't guess that by watching the news or listening to your neighbors. But unequivocally, we have it better than the wealthiest people one hundred or thousand years ago, for sure, and yet very little. It takes very little to bring us to our needs, to bring us to a halt.

9:09 And what I see across the board is people need resilience training, and I believe the mission of our Meaning Academy is set out to do just that. Gosh, guys, I sure love the company I hang out with. So my perspective on the matter comes from when I'm out speaking to audiences, and I like to talk a lot about you know, talking Gusto is kind of one of the things that I mentioned, And when I'm out speaking to audiences, I asked the audience, so what are you passionate about? And what I have been totally amazed by consistently is as soon as I deliver that question, there's this pause in the audience as they consider what the answer is.

9:50 And then I realize I can see it on the forehead that the vast majority of them do not have an answer. They do not know what they're passionate about. And I'm like, wow, one precious life, and you do not know what you're passionate about. So not only that, right, it's what it's They don't know what really matters to them either, So that that vacancy that and then then then there's an activation to reach for Oh wow, and then I know they need me, right, they need me to be able to help them activate that. So that's what I've been seeing is that people are literally going through life debt. They're walking through life debt and they just didn't know it. And by the way, I've been a card carrying member of myself, so I'm not making any judgment here, um, but that's what I what I've been seeing. Stakes are high, Um, not knowing you're as you're describing it, your purpose, you're why? Right, just to boil it down to one word not made popular by Simon Sinek, made popular by Frederick Nietzsche, and who you know was picked up upon by doctor Frankel. Those who have a why can endure anyhow. And so I think we're all saying the same thing from sort of a different angle of describing the elephant. Because if you know your why, you'll have greater resilt alliance when life, you know, brings you all kinds of challenges and tragedies.

11:05 M I want to go just for a moment here to what what what what works confronting organizations? You know that? And I'll start with this one because I see it very, very very front and center in terms of organizations today. I can't tell you the number of leaders that I have spoken to that are like pulling their hair out trying to figure out what to do to address that that people don't seem to They say, people don't seem to want to work, and they don't want to put forth their best effort, and they don't want to stick around. So that's some of the ailes that I've been hearing. And I do want to address a perspective from the pandemic that I think has emerged. But what are you guys seeing? What are organizations up against today? From your perspective? You know, at least I really agree with all those statements. People don't want to work for an organization where they don't find meaning or purpose in the work that they do right, and I believe we've we've you know, our industrial revolution is maintain a great economy for over one hundred years. But we are having this awakening where people are realizing that life is about more than forty or fifty or sixty hours a week feeling soul sapped, and so they're searching for that, and organizations that are on the front end of that are doing very well. Unfortunately, in my experience, they are a few and far between, but I see more and more getting on board every year, and those that don't, I feel we'll be left behind. I agree, you know, I counsel a lot of people in general, men in particular, around sort of a midlife period where

12:39 they're sort of peeking in their professional lives, and was that saying. I climbed the ladder of success to realize it was leaning against the wrong wall, and so I spent a lot of my life talking them out of leaving. Where As I say, it changing their context. Sometimes it's easier to change your context than to deal with the content. But the real work is not context because context is out of our control. Context and my experience is irrelevant. If Frankel can find meaning in a concentration camp. You can find meaning at IBM or wherever you're working and change your content, change your inner experience, change your attitude, change your philosophy and direction in life. I am not saying there's not a time and place to change your context, whether it's a partner, whether it's a job, but start where you stand. And so many people, including my father, so for me, it's personal throw away their lives pursuing something outside of themselves, and it's never outside of yourself.

13:43 So beautiful articulated. I want to speak to something that you kind of start. You allude to their dan and that is I wanted to get both of your perspectives on how you see the pandemic has altered what people want from their lives and work. What do you think has changed for people since the pandemic? Well, I certainly think people have realized that they can have more more balanced Maybe I think what we saw in the work from home stages and and you know shutdowns of economies local and national, really brought people back to what's important in life, you know, being around their family, whether they considered it the blessing of being with their family or being stuck with their family day in and day out. Right, like we learned to cope differently without all those outside consumer influences. And then we realize when things started to return to normal, we still wanted what was good in that And I think now that's what we're placing, is people looking to bring that back into their lives.

14:45 Oh gorgeously, said Bum. I'll play the role of the pessimist. I'm the Jewish guy. That's how we survived thousands of years of persecution, right. I gotta find I gotta find the truth in this for me, and I don't believe in epiphanies. When people have divine revelations, I think it lasts for about twenty seven minutes and then it's back to the way it was. I've done five hundred funerals as a rabbi. When I was officiating as a rabbi, I think people's hearts and minds are opened, and then I think they get back to the status quo, to the way it was. I've seen that with the pandemic. Yes, change transform new ways of being, and now here we are back in you know, sort of the rhythms, the routines. I do believe in transformation, I do believe it can happen, but it's an inside job. And so that context, you know, the next thing is around the corner. It will happen. If we're not moving, if we're not interdirected right and coming back to our core values, then I come back to the same theme. I guess for me today, the context becomes irrelevant interesting. I had a great conversation on air with Dr Ron Jakalotti, who wrote a book called Deep Purpose, and he said in our conversation, and I tend to agree with him that what his perspective on the pandemic was that it made people want more from their lives.

16:07 And I do believe that that's what I what I have seen. And when people say they want more oftentimes and they don't no really know what it is, what I believe what they're asking for is they want more meaning, they want more connection, They want something more in our life that makes them feel fulfilled and that life really matters. And so that's what I what I gotten. And to your point, be I think if we're not careful, if people aren't careful, and we don't help and do our jobs to make sure that people stay present to that which can be more fulfilling in their lives if they will go back to that place where they're back on the hamster wheel and everything was right where it was before. So I do believe that we have to be cautious about where we are right now. I do believe it's these are always opportunities to change. But I've my son is a competitive dancer, you know, and you could change it with hockey, you can change it with soccer. Prior to the pandemic had angry dance parents of a time lances.

17:03 Then you went through the pandemic, there was no dance. Then shortly afterwards people were on their best behavior and getting back to you know what this is. This is supposed to be fun and enjoyable, and now a couple of years out we're back to angry dance parents. So about it. So, you know, I do believe, I just I can't say it strongly enough. I do believe an inner transformation, and I do believe we need to ride these opportunities out, find meaning in them, and make a permanent, lasting kind of change in our life. I just don't think that we can bank on the challenge of the tragedy as being a one and done now I'm now, I'm different. M got it. On that note, let's take our first break and listen to you. You can pause and what we've been talking about here and give it some some reflection. I'm your host, doctor Eli's Cortez. We've been on the air with my colleagues doctor also efficially known as B and doctor Dan Franz. We've been talking abouit about what's going on in the world that we believe needs to be addressed in terms of individuals and companies. After the break, we're going to talk about how locotherapy can actually serve those needs. Stay 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

18:37 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. This is work 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 Ali se at Elise Cortez dot com. Now back to working on purpose. Thanks for stating with us. Before we get back into the program, I do want to announce that I'm very excited to bring to you the Purpose and Joy Tour. This is a collaboration with Joilie, an organization that teaches mindful practices to build happy, healthy, resilient world, and my firm, Elise Cortez and Associates that activates meaning and purpose in company culture and leadership to increase fulfillment, performance and retention. Together, we are going to thirty three cities across the United States, starting with Dallas in March and finishing with Virginia Beach in October to find our tribe and build a community of people who seek to elevate their lives and businesses by cultivating meaning, purpose and joy. You can find the list of city, states and planned events at Gusto dashnow dot com on the events or tour tap and then go to the city. Very excited to come to your backyard. So check out what we're doing here, find the event that you want sign up and we'll see you there if you're just doing the program today. My guests

20:10 are my colleagues doctor Bahu Kakalevi also known as b and doctor Dan France. I'm your host, Doctor Leise Cortez. So for this next big guys, what I really want to do is help our listeners understand this thing called logotherapy that we keep banting about that I know that we're total heats in but and as we talk about the concepts of logo therapy, if we can be present to how we can address some of those issues that we've talked about in the first segment here. So how about you Dan, first? Are what are help us distinguish some of the aspects of logo therapy that you really see it as as pre eminent or prominent in this space. Sure, I think one of my favorite things to prescribe, both to individuals and groups or organizations is what one of my professors call, I believe with doctor Franklin actually called it the meaning triangle. There are three ways that we can find meaning in life, through our creative work or through our creative attitudes or values, which often involves work. If work allows us to be creative, we can certainly find meaning in there, but as well as hobbies and activities outside of work, our experiences. I love to travel. I love to travel with my family sometimes most of the time, but to get out into experienced life and to enjoy different sites and sounds and general experiences. And then through our attitudes, right particularly our attitudes through difficult times, through struggling and through suffering, we can choose to be downtrodden and depressed and annoyed at times of difficulty, or

21:42 we can choose to find meaning, to find purpose, to find opportunity in difficult times. So through those three aspects of our lives creative attitudes, experienceial attitudes, and our attitudes towards life, we can discover meaning. And I find that to be something again. I think I took two minutes to describe that, something so simple to prescribe but so hard to go out and do on a daily basis. I'll also throw render that one of the things that I when I'm out speaking and I share this, but I'm sure you guys both did the same, both on air and when you're out sharing to audiences. But I think one of the things I like to really presence about logotherapy is it's central concern. It's central tended is that it puts forth that humankind's central concern, our main preoccupation is to find meaning, and that it is our central source of motivation and energy. I find it. It's amazing when I share there with audiences how people seem to be wrapped by that. Right, So I want to throw that out. There's one of the things.

22:41 So if in the organizations we're looking to get people to be more motivated to do their work, to perform well, then supply more meaning or help them find more meaning. Being my apologies. If I look like I'm being assailed by a moth, it's because I am here. But I'm trying to. I'm trying to, you know, change my inner experience of it can't change the context, So the essence for me, I won't reiterate every beautiful statement Dan just said is the power to choose? And what is our power? Right? I really am fascinated and committed to authentic power, not external powers.

23:22 You know, everything we're describing, the pandemic or whatever is not in my control, but my response to my circumstances. So empowering people, teaching people how to take back their power to choose their response, and watching people come alive when they realize that that's, as doctor Frankel said, yours until your dying breath. You know you're you're incapacitated, you're unable to move, and yet within you there is still this power that no external circumstance, nobody, no thing can take away from you. And when people start to get back to that, I see there their marriages, their parenting relationship, their life profession all come to life in a way that just couldn't have if you feel powerless, like a victim in your life. I want to quickly alistrate with a short story, and then I want to hear some more thoughts from from you Dan as well about your perspective and logo therapy and some of your favorite parts that you like to work with. What I was doing some my postdoc meeting in work and identity research, I interviewed different kinds of professions in one hundred and fifteen people total, and I want to understand their experience of work and what it meant to their sense of self. And I remember distinctly interviewing a chef and he said, oh, you don't want to interview me, I'm just hate in life right now. I said, I definitely want to. I want to understand your experience. So when I went to his restaurant, I interviewed him, and over the course of the ninety minute interview, this man fell into tears five times, openly. The whole restaurants full and this here's the main chef right here, sobbing, and he went on

24:55 and he said, you know, I hate what I'm doing in my life. I have I got this job. I worked all Friday and Saturday nights. My family's out Friday Sturday night, I'm working. I feel like I'm stuck here. I owe my ex wife all this extra money and Alimoni, I gotta pay that, and I don't get to cook them in you that I want. And my boss is a screamer. You have to walk on egg shells around here. And it was a rough interview. And so after I finished interviewing him and that the protocol was, I sent him his interview to make sure that it was right and I could actually analyze from it. So he got his interview back and then I went through and I found these fifteen modes of engagement from my analysis, and all the way from the most engaged, fulfilled one, which is transcendental connection, and then you know, living my purpose. And the very very last one, the most negative, awful one that I found was existential crisis. And that was, of course the one that I found that he was experiencing. So what part of my design was, Let me come back and share. Here's my modes, Here's how I did it. Here's the one I think you experienced when we interviewed.

25:56 Do you agree and do you think you have changed sense? To which one? So I was not looking forward to the phone call with this guy. You know, how do you who wants to tell somebody that there are an existential crisis? So the phone rings, he picks right up and he goes, doctor c great news, I'm all the way up to conflicted fit. And I started laughing. That was one of the other modes. And it's about six levels up, you know, from where he was up. And he said, what happened was after you interviewed me, and after I read the transcript, I gave it a transcript to my wife and to my mother, and they both stopped. They had no idea that I was feeling the way that I was feeling, and so that changed the dynamic, that piece, and that our connection, and there was there was more support and connection and offers to help, and more conversation happened out of this, and he said, I still work at the same place. He said, I still have the same crappy hours. I still have the same screamer boss.

26:51 But what had come to understand is that I've got a great job. I make really good money. I could send both my kids to college, and my kids are actually really proud of where I work. And nothing has changed except his attitude the way he has chosen to respond to the circumstance. So I think that's a really powerful illustration of just kind of what you were talking about there being Dan. Yes, I just love it. I want to answer one of the questions you asked, and there who wants to tell people they're in existential crisis? This guy, I do. I love that right, be right as as because as as we've described, we are logo nerds that really so many people in existential crisis and don't even know it, right, And that's the times. We live in one of the most prosperous, safest, wealthiest times in human history, yet so many people in this existential crisis. So who wants to point it out? These guys, right, Because only when we know we're in existential crisis, as your example showed, only when we know can we do something about it. And that's really the fun of what we get to do is to point it out to people and then share with them the different ways. I love this idea. So many other people what would they have said to this chef, will get out, find another job, go do something different. And what he needed to do was shift his attitude. And Doctor Frankel tells us that and Doctor and the Soul his chapter on meaning at work, right, It's it's not the job

28:21 that you do that gives it meaning, right, it's how you approach it. It's your attitude towards it. And that's so important to help people learn. And I just love that example that you help that individual find that and help them to break through that existential crisis. It was incredibly satisfying and by the way, really quick and then be I'd love to hear a bit more about your perspective on these different local therapy principles that you like to use work with so the conflicted fit mode of engagement is for people that generally are working in the right kind of work, but probably in the wrong environment, they don't get to fully express. So he was still he was doing the right work, but he's still been exactly in the environment. But it's okay. He can deal with it for now because he's now developed some cooping mechanisms in a way to choose his attitude. So I just wanted to make sure I distinguish that for those are relax so great, he's in conflicted fit. That doesn't sound good either, and it's not optimal, but it's better. What other things do you like to work with in logotherapy? I would say that is that is to me, the central place I come back to over and over with every single client, all day, every day, which is right here right now, as doctor Frankel talked about bearing your burden and really seeing the burdens, the challenges, the tasks in front of us as the pathway to meaning, because it's just too easy in our society to romanticize a future.

29:49 If you know how many people have said to me, I just if I had more money, and I'll challenge them because that's how you know I'm wired. You wouldn't be happier. I know you would, because I work with the version of you that just move the decimal point. One more spot, two more spot. It's never enough. And until you make your defiance stand where you are, to choose to see the challenges in front of you as a pathway to meaning. It's constantly frustrating. But the moment you make that, as I say, you flip the script on that and the burden is the pathway everything changes. Here's the work is right here, right now. Doing this burden, Carrying this burden is a pathway to meeting people's lives change around that. Yeah, if I can jump in on that, I think, just to tie both your stories together, that individual the chef's opportunity to choose could have been I'm going to choose my change my situation, or I can change this environment. Maybe I can point out, wow, this culture really needs to change. That's one of the things I enjoy doing is bringing the MBTI, the Myers Briggs people's different types and the way they operate in the world into an organization and pointing out, Okay, here's all the people you have, here's how they operate. How can you help them find meaning and create a culture of meaning and purpose and resilience, so people want to work there. Not that you're losing people and can't retain them, it can engage them, but that you have so many applicants that you're just flooded with really hard working, good people that want to be in your organization.

31:22 Well, that is definitely the work that I'm out to try to help companies to Dan, So I love how you said that. Let us grab our last break here. I'm your host, Talctor Elie's Cortez. We've been on the air with my colleagues doctor about Who Kalevi also known as b and doctor Dan Franz. We've been talking a bit about what logotherapy is and how it actually helps the issues that we were talking about at the beginning of the first segment. After the break, we're going to talk about the work that we are doing together at the Victor Frankel Meaning Academy Academy of Meeting State Whos 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.

32:27 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 sting well us and welcome back to working on Purpose. I mentioned in the last about the Purpose and enjoy to ward that we've been launching. The two latest books that I wrote that are part of that tour are The Great Revitalization, How activating meaning and Purpose can radically enliven your business, which helps leaders to learn how to build it elevating and high performing cultures in leadership. The other latest book is Coloring Life, How Loss invites us to live more vibrant lives, which helps people navigating loss to transform to growth and vitality. You can find both on Amazon if you're now just joining us. My guests are my colleagues doctor Bahu Kalevi also known as b and doctor Dan Franz. I'm your host, doctor Les Cortez. So for this last bit, let's talk about what we're doing together. So let's talk about and share where this whole idea of the Victor Frankel Academy of Meaning King came from and what we're up to. That's got to be on you, B. Good call, at least I totally agree. For I don't know, twenty five years, I've been in a community building business. Happened to be as a rabbi, it

33:59 happened to be in a synagogue for most of that time. But then I left. I went to the entrepreneurial world, and I was living in Israel in the Silicon Valley of Israel and Tel Aviv called startup Nation, and I realized tribes and communities come in all forms, and this this was my new tribe, this was my new people. And then I left there and came back to the States and realized I need a tribe. I don't really care what the form is. I just cared that it's built around values, shared values, purpose meaning, And for about five six years have been sort of longing for that communing that community of meaning seekers as we call them. And so a couple of years ago connected with Dan and more recently connected with you Elise, and have been just enamored by our shared vision of we need a meaning tribe and it can be virtual, it also will be in person.

34:55 And the world right now is hungry for meaningful community and so really that's been my driver for a very long time. But now it's taking shape around Victor Frankel's philosophy and bringing people together around meaning, purpose and resilience to build a community. Pretty darn awesome, right, I'm I'm exceedingly proud to be part of this, guys. I mean just really, I do pinch myself sometimes going how in the heck did this ever happen? So let's talk about So for our listeners and viewers that are going, okay, so what is this thing you know all about? So who you guys have had various experiences conversations with our our with our clients and the people that are coming to our community.

35:40 From your perspective, share what you're hearing, Why people are showing up? Why do people want to be on the meaning Mastermind calls? Why do they want to be part of the Facebook community. Why are they partaking of the programs for so many reasons? At least, I think what we've all encountered is people they feel this internal calling, but they're not sure how to identify it. Right. There's an intuitive need for this meaning that most people are experiencing, and when we bring that up to them in different ways, whether it's it's mothers at home with their kids or CEOs of corporations, they say, wow, yeah, that really makes sense. Where do I get more of that? We all just shared a podcast, a pretty popular one yesterday, of two people talking about this. Yeah, this this Victor Franklo guy, he really had some things to talk about, but we need to know more, and all of us said, hey, we got it.

36:37 We know a whole bunch more, and we just can't wait to share it. So I think there's a very I don't nearly primal calling to discover meaning, to find meaning, but many people just it's been buried right of One of the great analogies I had in my studies was many of us our soul, our spirit is this anchor, and right now that anchor is muddied and buried in the muck, and our role is local therapist, local philosophers at the Menia Academy is to help people uncover that anchor, to find that that human spirit and what's calling to them and how to discover mean. Yeah. This morning, I was just at a yoga class and the teacher degenerated into what I call yoga babel, and it was just like this message, I didn't know what you're saying. I like she was trying to impart a meaning message and everybody's just kind of looking like, I'm not sure what to do with that. People are hungry, you know. These are the institutions that you know, churches and synagogues and rotaries. These were the places people used to go for community and for messages. Most of the people I know aren't going to those places anymore. If you are going, that's wonderful, and I encourage you to keep going. But most of the people population is looking for both a place to gather around these ideas and a structure, a message, a mission that has withstood the test of time and makes sense. And this makes sense. Yeah. So what I'm also hearing and very present too,

38:09 for the people that seem to be showing up with us, is this this leaning end. So so some people, of course are trying to deal with a loss or something has gone horribly wrong in their lives, and they're trying to figure out how to how to how to move forward, and so dealing with pain, the pain of life kind of thing, or the loss of life. So we see that, and I what's been present for me too, even just recently in some of our meaning mastermind calls, is just this this reach for connection, meaningful connection connection that where we're actually talking about things of substance. We're not talking about the weather or you know, something silly about what's happened on in politics or whatever, but we're really talking about the essence of life here. So that's some of the things that I've been seeing. And then in addition to that, really seeing people wanting and recognizing that they can be turned on by their own lives, they can do it themselves from the insight out, and that they just need a little bit of help, a little encouragement into your point structure, away a philosophy and approach to be able to activate those meaning systems and that intrinsic motivation to realize the life that they really want for themselves. One thing I would add is one of the Doctor Freckle's contemporaries, Carl Jung, had an idea that there's a morning of life in an afternoon of life, and they're just different sets of rules. And yet most people I know are still living in the morning of the morning of life rules in the afternoon, And as Young said, what works in the morning will fail you in the afternoon. Where do you go

39:42 to learn a new set of rules. I've done so many funerals of successful people who have succeeded mastery in business as an example, and their parent dies and they're completely ill equipped for this space because they have mastery in one realm, but they don't have mastery in the other realm. And then the other realm, this afternoon of life realm the second half of life where you need a place to go, and we need systems to turn to, and I believe that's a pain point we're addressing. And when we don't have those systems, when we don't have those places to go, like the Meaning Academy, what happens when we're ill prepared for that next phase of life is we see so often the existential crisis or what you know it has almost become a joke in the midlife crisis, the successful businessman buying the expensive sports car and still not finding meaning in it. So our goal is to help people realize you don't need the expensive sports car. You just need maybe a tribe. You need connection, you need somebody saying hey, here are some ways to go find meaning in your life. One of the things that I appreciate about what we have created together, the three of us, is that we also each bring some respective um areas that we were drawing on before we came together.

41:02 Um, I bring up this. I'm sort of gallops, sort of gallop, sort ofvide strength coach, Um Dan your mb tire And B you you're the eneogram guy. And I think it's really quite unusual that we as a as an organization can provide these other ways for people to really better understand themselves, um within through the of course the meaning and that the local therapy stuff that we provide. So I think that's amazing. And and B I know you have really developed your you know, defy your your your number. Um I would just challenge because that's what I do, that idea. I think, yes, and I'm not the Enneagram guy. Although I do to myself, you know, at a cocktail party that way, just because it's easier to explain. But you know, I'd like to have something much funny.

41:51 Yes, yeah, other than Dan and you so um, But I'm a Frankel guy, and so in your Frankle teacher, and it happens to be that the niagram is a great delivery mechanism for his teachings and MBTI and strength finders, if that makes speak for you. What I think is also unique about us, and why I call it defy your number is because you're not an Aneagram number. You're not a Myer's break set of letters. You're not a strength fighting or label and that because that goes against the grain of what doctor Frankel taught that you're never those things. You're the defiant power of the human spirit. And I believe what's so awesome about what we're doing is we're usually using these systems to deliver a much deeper message. One of what you just said there reminds me that one of the one of the things that I love about logotherapy, and I just I jam on in my work individually with people as well as organizations, and in my personal relationships. Is this notion of celebrating the uniqueness of every human being, helping them to discover that in themselves, and that there's that's part of it. That's one of the you know, the three circumstances or five circumstances in which we can encounter meaning is finding that uniqueness. I truly agree, and I think that's what the three of us and the Growing Meaning Academy can bring to people. If B is a Frankel guy and I'm the NbTi guy, I would say as an organization,

43:22 we are a logos group, right that we bring in Frankel and your strengths, but also the modern research of doctor Jordan B. Peterson's strength enniogram Mbti. There's so much again going back to my point earlier, there was so much need for meaning out there. I've seen the word logos so many places in current modern culture and people not understanding what it means, but this inherent call to to find it. And I think between the three of us and our growing group of logo nerds, if we'll call them, or logo philosophers, as we're growing meanings meaning secrets, we are the logo nerds because sometimes our meaning seekers look at us saying what does that word mean? And that's what we're here to do is help people define that that internal call to find logos, to find meaning. So we're getting close to the end here, and I want to be able to present something for listeners and viewers.

44:20 A lot of people don't really understand how meaningful work can be and how what a joy it can be, and they sly, I don't understand that you can be passionate about it. So if we can get toward the end of the show here and just you know, briefly both of you would do this, if you would just share what is it about this work that you find so meaningful? Oh why, I'm going to go ahead and borrow one of doctor Frankel's quotes, and that through this work leading up to this and even now since Be introduced himself and brought us together, at least the idea that you know, to help other peop people discover meaning is truly one of the most meaningful things I get to do in my life day to day, right, And that goes to the idea of self transcendence when we step outside ourselves to help others. Well, some people would say that kind of altruism is a selfish act, right because it feels so good for us to help others.

45:20 But that truly is I mean, if we had more people doing that, if we could teach more people to do that, what a wonderful world. It could be not a bad way to spend a day. Yeah, I would just add on to that very sentiment, which is, you know, because I mentioned I've done so many funerals that's really impacted me deeply. And legacy. What's my legacy? What's your legacy? Transcending myself? This is the language of Frankel Maslow is wrong. With all due respect to his great contributions, the top of the pyramid is not self actualization being the best version of myself, or if it is, the only way to get there is through giving, through serving, through duty, through honor, through love, and to help people translate that in practical, actionable ways as as the central focal point of their life, meaning not as um you know, additional, But that is why we're here, and that's the work we're doing on every level, and just helping people remember that and live that. I'm going to go back onto the end front here because I can't argue or say that none of what you said before isn't what also occurs for me. So what I'll also add is that for me, why is this such meaningful work?

46:34 Why do I commit to this? It's not it's not necessarily an easy path to do what we've been doing, to build this what we've been doing, but it's irresistible. And the reason it's irresistible for me is because I'm really aware, and this is something we can get from local therapy as well. We each have one precious life. We do not know when the exit ramp is coming, and most of us really really want to matter. We want to know that our life's really meant something, And it takes something to be able to activate the capacity and people to be able to realize that fullness, to reach for that fullness, to want to give as best they possibly can. And I find it absolutely phenomenally magnificent to be the person that gets to be present to that activation component, to get to literally watch some of these molecules change as they reach for that and realize that there's more in themselves and in their lives and they thought there could be. I totally agree seeing people have those aha moments individually is so powerful. But when those people are a part of an organization or a corporation, and that aha moment starts with one person and filters through to the group and maybe to the leadership team, maybe to the corporation. Ah, what a powerful experience that is. And by helping them just find some simple changes they can make to help more people discover meaning. I mean, what better way again, as you said, what better way to spend today? And I would just add one last thing, and I call that trickle down transformation because you know you're the CEO. I'm

48:06 sure lots of leaders are listening to your show. It trickles down to the people around you, to the people who work for you, to the culture of the organization starts with you well, and then those individuals that are inside that organization then they go home. Now we trickle this now to these significant others in their household, their children, the pets, and then their volunteer work into the community and on and on and on. And I personally am thrilled to be part of the stand to be a positive trickle in the world, and very grateful, gentlemen that I get to serve with you well at least, it's certainly an honor to work with you and Be. Thanks man, thanks for bringing us all together and making this happen. I'm so excited for the work we're doing at the Meeting Academy and can't wait to see I love what you describe at least that trickle down effect and being able to really have a positive impact in the world. Final words, beat before we go our separate ways, Well, we're not going our separate ways because we talk more than talk to you both more than I talk to my wife. So I can't wait to continue this conversation and have your listeners join us. The Meaning Mastermind is probably the best place to start Thursday's noon Pacific three o'clock Eastern, where we just gathered together as a starting point for our meaning tribe meaning seekers just to come and participate in the meaningful conversation. Awesome, guys, it is really great to have you on my show and get to share the work that we were doing together. I want to thank both of you,

49:37 Dan and Be for being on and contributing. Yes, you're right, we will talk again, but just not here on this program for at least not today. Listeners and viewers, if you want to learn more about the three of us and the work we were doing at the Victor Frankel Academy of Meaning, go to the Academy of Meaning dot com and that's where you can actually see You can see the Thursday's calls, and you can sign up for our newsletter and learned just what we're doing and just connect. So I'll see you next week for another nourishing conversation. And remember that work is an integral and important part of our lives and can be one of the best adventures and means of realizing our potential and 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.