Existentially Speaking: A Comedian's Take on Engagement

0:06 There are some people that make their work just another thing they have to do, and there are those that make their work something that they want to do. Welcome to Working on Purpose with your host Elise Cortez. In our program, we provide guidance and inspiration from those people who have found deeper meaning and personal connection to their work life. It's beyond nine to five, it's working on Purpose. Now Here is your host, Elise Cortez. Welcome back to the Working in a Purpose Show. Thanks for tuning in again this week. I'm your host, Alise Cortez, joining from Dallas, Texas, which is home base for me. This program is all about helping people more meaningfully and productively connect with their work and equipping organizations to do the same for their employees.

0:50 So I bring on guests to have a particular perspective or experience that I think expands the conversation, and I often draw on the meaning of work research I've been doing over the last fifteen years, as well as my own experience can including the work that I do today at a siding, which is a global management consulting firm. I'll get to the program and my guest in just a second, but first a thank you to my media partner and sponsor, jobbing dot Com. They are the leading locally focused job board in the nation and they are dedicated to helping employers find quality talent in their own backyard while giving job seekers control over their search they can find work close to home. Great partnership. Thank you jobbing dot Com. If you missed the show live last week, you can always catch the podcast. We were on the air with doctor Owen Lynch, who was an associate professor in the Meadows School of Arts at Southern Methodist University. He also serves as a director of Get Healthy Dallas, which is a nonprofit organization he helped form that is dedicated to address in the lack of healthy food options, adequate education, and economic development opportunities in Dallas, with special focus on the South Dells and the Farr Park area.

1:46 We talked about his passion to address food deserts in urban areas and what he and his students and other associates are doing to improve economic development along the way. With us. This week we have Greg Kite, who is a former eighth grade math teacher. Today Where's the Hats He is the co host of a monthly podcast that you have never heard of, he likes to say. He is a regular blogger for the Thrive All CPA network and creates a week biweekly cartoon for Going Concern, and over the last twelve years, he has established himself as a unique voice in the world of stand up comedy. We'll be talking about the ideas he's come to develop about the importance of play at work and how that translates to engagement, among other things. Greg Joyce today from Provo, Utah. Greg, welcome to Working on Purpose. Thanks at least, I'm totally excited to be here and to talk about everything.

2:35 We You and I met in a very serendipitous way, what like almost exactly a month ago, or was it two month? Maybe it was October. I think it was October. Already was October, that's right, Yeah, And so you just kind of crashed the party of Another Voice America's show. I did write about the time when I was given my presentation on playing at work and we found out that what you do and what I'm what I'm developing line up pretty tightly exactly. And let me presence that for our listeners. And by the way, Greg, I'm happy to share that I do get to enjoy listenership all over the globe. We have a lot of listeners in China, Thank you China. We have a lot of listeners in Japan, Thank you Japan, and of course the United States and all over the rest of the world as well, And so I wanted to be sure that they knew how it was I found you, So listeners, this was really fun.

3:23 I did crash this party. I was invited by my producer here at Voice America to join this Various age symposium. And not very long after I arrived, who shows up on stage but Greg, and he's talking about this thing that I love, which is about you know, how to play at work and how to engage ourselves and about meaning and existential meaning and all this stuff that was just yummy for me. And Greg, I will never forget when you said you open it up to the audience and you said, what do you think? Is this just all like ridiculous? Have you all heard this before or what is this? And I grabbed the mic and said, I have heard some of this for but the way you bring it to life is so fantastic. Do you remember that? I do? I do remember that, And that is that is one of the things with this, And I think, like a lot of my thoughts about about engagement at work, I don't think it's like, you know, like I broke some new code and I found something that's brand new, but it's it's maybe a more of a unique shift in how you look at work and how you approach work.

4:28 But but yeah, and yeah, I do remember that, and that was incredibly uh you know that that gave me a lot of of of courage, I guess to move forward and to take the take these take these concepts forward. The other weird thing too about it is that the the so it was, it was the what got the spirit of enterprise was the show, which is run by a former accountant and a guy who works for an accounting software company, and their main the main goal for them and for various age is to abolish the billable hour model in professional service firms. Here you are coming to like arguably the lamest party, well at least on the surface. They're a great group and I love it and I get so much out of the symposiums that they can. But if you're just looking at it, going wow, this is a group of accounts and lawyers who don't want to build by the hour anymore. It's like yawn path. But that's where you came.

5:28 And then I'm a fellow with the Various Age Institute, which is again it's it's devoted to abolishing the billable hour, and we all the fellows when we have these symposiums, we talk about basically our latest greatest thinking that we've been incubating since the last symposium, and mine had absolutely nothing to do with the billabile hour model or any store accounting at all, and was still the other things. So yeah, it was kind of a strange coincidence flash in the pan, lightning and a bottle kind of thing. Well, a couple of things on that kind. Man. First, as you and I have spoken before we were supposed to meet, there was kismet. However you want to say this, if you want to say it's God's plan or the universe coming together, whatever it is that however, people tend to believe. I am convinced that you and I were supposed to meet, and I had an amazing time. And in fact I did also have Kirk Bowman on the show on December six talking about value pricing. We talked about that very thing. The whole show is dedicated to that. So I learned a ton about that because I missed some of that presentation. So that was fantastic. So I do want to I want to hear about this, I mean, and I also want to talk about the fact that, you know, among other things, you're a funny man, and I want to hear about how that, how that experience has informed your perspective. But you're writing a book called Playing at Work, and I want to understand where some of your ideas have come from and what are they? What are you what are you conjuring about playing at work as it relates to engagement and meaning? Gotcha? Well, the the

7:00 ideas came from a kind of a weird place, like the inspiration to for like my muse for these ideas came from a book that I was reading called play Anything. And and it's a book I should I should look it up real quick on the computer. Here it was. It was a book that I read about in a magazine that I was reading, and it had a really great write up. And yeah, the author's Ian Bogost, who's a computer pro, like a video game developer. And the idea was that you could no matter where you're at, no matter what you're doing, is that it's something that you can play. And so I read this book, which is super high hopes that it would be this, you know, this great thing about how how you can take work or anything in life and you can you can change, you know, by changing your viewpoint on anything. You can transform whatever that task is that you're working on into play of some kind.

8:01 And I read through the book and honestly, I was super disappointed in the book because it was not what I wanted to read, like I had this and I realized that I was reading through this book, I realized that I had all these expectations for what I wanted him to say, which was the weirdest like realization in the world. That It's like I wasn't reading this book to like, not so much to get ideas, but to almost like to have someone put into words like thoughts and feelings that already had like brewing up inside of me. So I get done reading this book, and funny thing I was part of why I was reading the book is for my podcast.

8:43 It's called the Thrivecast, which is also part of the Thrival CPA network. Once a year for our podcast, we do what we call Jason and Gregg's Book Club. Jason Blummer is the co host on that podcast, and so we where we just review two of the two books that we've read that year. And this was one of the books that I had chosen to read and to basically give my my review in my summary of during that podcast. And so I was just going, this isn't saying what I wanted it to say. And I have this right when I was finished reading it and getting ready for this podcast, I was like going, you know what, I know what I wanted this book to say. Maybe I just need to write a book that says what I wanted what I need to write the book that I wished that I had just read. Does that make sense? It makes perfect sense? And how brilliant is that? Well, if that doesn't give the listeners some some something to think about for themselves, who they might be considered writing a book, I think that's a great idea. You actually expected to get something from this book, did not get it, and so figured hey, I'll write it myself. I think it's brilliant, right, And that's exact. And so then the funny thing is in the podcast, what I did what I did because, like I said, we each have two books that we reviewed during this podcast, we kind of alternate ba and forth.

10:00 So when it came back to me to review Play Anything by Ian Bogost, I did not review his book, but instead I gave a thorough explanation of the book that I wish it was the book that I that I'm in the process of writing, and and and so the whole time my co host is thinking, I'm telling him about this this book Play Anything, And at the end I tell him and actually, maybe maybe ten percent of what I just said actually came from that book, and the rest of it is actually what I wished that the book had said. And that was sort of the launch of these ideas. So that's not really an explanation of what I'm thinking. That's more like the origin story of these ideas. But to get into I guess basically what I mean, there's a there's a couple of things, and I'll get to the existential stuff later, but really the beginning part of this whole idea of playing at work is that I love to be engaged in what I'm doing. You've you've heard of and I'm not going to I have no idea how to pronounce the guy's name, but there's the office. Yeah, you've got to be talking about chiz In Mahali, right, the flow guy. Yeah, the flow I knew it. Yeah have you? Have you gone into his stuff before? On your on your show, not on my show, but I have read his works over and over again. The flow concept. Yes, I'm completely with you, Greg. See you and I can finish each other's sentences. That's a scary thing, totally. Well

11:33 so with Flow and and Flows an interesting book because it's it's one of those books that it's like the the the concepts pretty straightforward and in you know, and maybe a brief conversation people get that. And that's that there's these flow states that we get into where we kind of lose track of time. We're completely engrossed in whatever the task is that we're working on, and we're you're it's almost like this, it's almost it's almost I don't know, it's not spiritual, it's not mystical, but it's just this complete engagement with whatever's happening. You're not necessarily like feeling euphoric, but you kind of. But but then at the same time you're working to your strengths, you're trying to you're challenged to just the right amount in this in with whatever task you're achieving, flow in. And that's that's like the level of engagement that that that we that we want, that we that we aspire to, that we that we want to get to. And that's why I think flow by the improv the guy with the impro name, is so compelling because everybody goes, I've tasted that before. Everybody in their life has been there before, right, you've been yes, yes, I'm sure every listener has has been in a place where they just go, yeah, I was working on my strengths and I was and I was, you know, climbing new hills and it was the best. And I would have done it forever if I could have, I could have, I would have stayed in that place. And and that's where we want to be. That's the level of engagement that we want to get to. And so we're playing at work. I specifically look at three different

13:05 types of play that will achieve that that kind of engrossing engagement that'll that'll help you get more engaged with what you're doing at work. So there's three types of play that I've identified. One is competitive play, one isn't is artistic play, and then the third is what I call pure play. And those are the three types. So competitive play that's basically like sports, and whether it's an individual sport or a team sport, it's all competitive play and and and that, and really there's not a whole lot I can add on to that to increase people's understanding, but I'll explain how we can start building competitive play into our workplace. The second type of play is artistic play, which is more like you're playing you're playing the violin, or you're playing the guitar, or you or even any kind of fine arts that you're involved in.

14:00 If you're a painter a sculptor, that's artistic play that you're working with there. And then the third type of play is what I call pure play, and that's just where you're screwing around and with that, and that's probably of the three types that's the most controversial aspect of play because I think a lot of people, especially a lot of managers might look at that and go, no, I'm trying to cut down on people screwing around at work. But what they don't understand is with mature people, if you have if you hire the right people and you allow them to the freedom to pursue pure play within the context of getting their work done, that that can be an incredibly engaging form of play for anybody who's at work. I like it. I like it. Okay. So those are three types of play and then and we can and the strange thing is is that they're all very different. I think if people think if they if they hear the idea of playing at work, they'll probably gravitate their mind will just go to the pure play to messing around kind of playing at work. But we find that each of these three different things is very very different. When you're in competitive play, you're trying you're trying to achieve a very specific goal. It's a goal oriented thing oftentimes.

15:24 And actually, if you're really going to leverage this to the best of your ability, you're going to have someone that you're competing against in that often that whoever you're competing could against could be yourself. But even if we get back to like some of the basic business strategies you know that we learn about in in you know, in our MBA school, kind of education. One of the ways to build a strategy is to identify a competitor, to basically identify an enemy that you'd like to beat. So competitive play means into that artistic play is more like you want to be a world clay You want to be world class at what you do. You want to be the best, you know, just just like a violinist wants to be the best violinist on the planet. You want to be the best at whatever you do. And then and then pure play, that's where you're just trying to find the fun in whatever task is at hand, whatever's before you, You're going to find a way to and not just to make it fun. Because I'm not talking about like Hawaiian Shirt Day, you know, on the on the last Friday of the month, because that I mean, that can be something that does engage people, but typically that's more of a forced I mean, I would look at if we had Hawaiian Shirt Day at my work, I would look at that as like obligatory fun where I had to like fake it to make to make whoever to make. You know, Kevin who thought up Hawaiian Shirt Day

16:56 to make him not feel bad about his idea that I'm really not into. But with pure play, the trick there is to make it something that you really are interested in, and that is really going to you know, to to blow your skirt up and make it, you know, make work just and it's almost like you're being subversive, but not in a way that's going to blow your company up. I want to comment at a couple of things real quick, and then we'll have to go on break here shortly. But Greg, one of the things that you said about the whole uh, I think you said artistic was the second kind of play. Is that right? Yep? Artistic? Okay, So when you talk about it, you know, being the best at something, right, that's that's it. What I know from my meeting and work research is that people have there's a way for people to experience meaning in their work around competence. It's this feeling of being competent in something. I'm good at this, and there's something about that feeling that when we feel that it's very it's meaningful to us and therefore it's engaging.

17:59 So I wanted to connect which the research that I've been doing. I just wanted to catch that real quick. The others didn't stand us as much to me as the research that I've done. But that one was like, ah, I got that one totally crisply. And here we are already ready to go for a quick break. Yeah, I think I think we're kind of where we need to. Okay, good, they shut you down. If we didn't write, well that's pretty much yet, Cortez, stop talking. I'm your host. Elis Cortez. We've been on the air with Greg Kite. He is the co host of a monthly podcast and he's a regular blogger for the Thriveall thrive Ball how do you say that rival? It's like survival but okay, trial regular blogger for the thrival CPA network and it creates a biweekly cartoon for a going concern interested today from Provo Utah. We've been talking a bit about his interest in playing at work and how that translates to engagement. After the break, I want to hear more about risk taking as well as his thoughts about the existential piece of it. Stay with us, We'll be right back. Friend us on Facebook to keep up with what's empowering the world. Voice America empowermentson Elise Cortez is a speaker and engagement and development catalyst. She designs and delivers professional development, leadership and engagement workshops and can bring her expertise to your organization. She will help ignite meaningful development within your workforce that will increase employee engagement, performance and retention. To learn more or

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20:26 Lisa and her guests will combine health and spirituality to bring you the experience that you've been waiting for. You'll enjoy this journey every Wednesday at five pm Pacific time and eight pm Eastern Time on the Voice America Empowerment Channel. It's sure to be a nourishing experience. It's your world. Motivate, change, succeed. Voice America Empowerment dot com. This is Working on Purpose with Elise Cortez. To reach our program today, please call in to one triple eight three four six nine one four one. Again, that's one triple eight three four six nine one four one. You may also send an email to Elise ali Se at Elise Cortez dot com. Now back to Working on Purpose. Thanks for staying with us, and welcome back to Working on Purpose if you're just joining us. My guest is Greg Kite. He is the co host of a monthly podcast and he's a regular bloggraph for the Thrible CPA network and creates a biweekly cartoon for Going Concern. Over the past twelve years, Greig has estabbed himself as a unique voice in the world of stand up comedy as well.

21:48 I'm your host, Elise Cortez. So Greg, before the break, we were talking about your three kinds of play that you've you've discovered, and you give some examples of those. For this next segment, can we start by talking a bit about the existential piece. I couldn't resist bringing that in. There's that's the meaning piece of what we've been talking about here. So let's get your perspective on the existential piece of things, and then I've got a couple of questions to follow on. Okay, fantastic. Well, the way of the existential piece comes into play is this is that you can look at employee engagement or just your own engagement at work. I guess I was starting to look at this from a like, from a managerial perspective within any organization, and it's like, why would we want to encourage play? What's the purpose of playing at work? Why would anyone want to, you know, have implement these different ways of playing within their job? What's that going to do? And some of it's pretty obviously, I mean, it's it's going to increase your bottom line if you if you you know, part of competitive play is having very clear goals, showing people this is exactly what you need to do in your position to win, and and then actually even having making whatever you can of the competitive side of your work, make that public.

23:07 If you're doing that, if you're having public competition and clear goals, you're going to end up reaching your company's goals, and then that's going to make you more profitable, which is fantastic. There's also you know, I know my arena in the world is accounting, and there is a huge lack of qualified staff in the accounting world. So some of this you could also say if you're if you're implementing these these different types of play, you're going to be able to attract and retain the staff that you need. With artistic play, if you have an entire firm, that's or company where everyone is trying to become the absolute best they can in their one specialty within your firm.

23:51 Because again, if you're a if you're a world class violinist, you're probably not also going to be a world class floutist at the same time. So there's there's this real specialization. But if everybody knows their specialization and is becoming the best in the world at that specialty, then your firm's gonna gonna make a lot of money as well. There. So there's you know, there's plenty of reasons that you can come up for, plenty of business reasons that you can come up with for for implementing play at work. But for me, that's not that's not really what does it for me. What does it for me is engagement is basically engagement for the sake of engagement. And one of the things that I do. I mean, I think if a lot of people were going to look at at kind of my my curriculum vita and look at the different things that I do with my life. I'm an accountant, I do stand up comedy and I and I very much enjoy reading philosophy and psychology. And so with that philosophy and psychology side of things, it brought me to an author and his name is Irvin d. Yalem, and he in a book called Existential Psychotherapy, which sounds like the worst beach read in the history in the history of the world. But this book was recommended to me. I mean it was it's well, this is something that we that you and I talked about in Texas as well when I was out there was I went through a divorce early earlier this year. My wife,

25:22 my ex my now ex wife, and I we spent a couple of years going to a marriage counselor. Obviously it didn't it didn't salvage our marriage. But my marriage counselor recommended this book to me, and this was actually one of the best takeaways I got out of my two years of marriage counseling. Was this existential psychotherapy book and what And basically, so he's coming at it from a from a psych from a practicing psychologist standpoint, and he's saying, there's these existential problems, you know, particularly meaning meaninglessness in the world, and that that's a problem everybody has, not just crazy people who need you know, psychiatrists, but it's it's every single person. It has this problem with meaninglessness in the world and finding meaning in the world. And it's it's fantastic because he says in this book, he says that engagement is the antidote to meaninglessness. So he says, so here's just some of the great quotes that I have from him. I mean, this it's a long book.

26:23 It's you know, five hundred, six hundred pages long. And it's dense. So there's there's about a billion quotes I could have pulled out of it, but some of them that are directly tied to engagement. He says, meaningless is intricately interwoven with leisure and with disengagement. And what I love about that quote is that if you don't want meaninglessness, then you should avoid leisure, which means you need to work, and you need to avoid avoid disengagement, which means you need to engage. And playing is a way for you to engage at your work. He was kind of saying just the con verse of what I'm saying, is that through engaged, playful work, you're going to find meaning in what you do. And then later in the book he says meaning like pleasure, must be pursued obliquely. A sense of meaningfulness is a byproduct of engagement. So again, if you just if you're just going, I need to find meaning in things. I need to find meaning.

27:22 What's the meaning? What's the meaning? You get and you get locked into that of going I don't feel like I have a meaning or a purpose in what I do, which is what we talked about right before the break. You're not going to find that meaning directly. What you need to do is you gotta go, Okay, how can I get engaged with what I'm doing right now? And then by finding that engagement, you're going to find meaning through engagement, which I think is a I mean, that was one of the biggest takeaways that I got from this whole book. Does that how does that line up with some of the research and studies that you've done on meaning? I love it and it's wonderful, and you know this just jazz is me to no end. So a couple of things. Yes, I know y'ellam's work as you and I've talked about, and I also get that meaning is a byproduct of engagement and what I want to now recognize and the three levels of play that you just came up with, I just kind of put the dots together for my own researches. I looked at I can't remember now how many buckets of meaning I coded for, but I did actually look at them along Maslow's hierarchy of meaning. And so you know, if you look at there's the safety piece of things of having a stable job and money, and then there's the emotional stuff, and then there's a steam stuff how you feel about things, and then there's you can look at the value and the purpose c above that. What I think is what I see and what you've identified, Greg, is that you've identified a set along the feeling spectrum, the emotive spectrum, so you're competitive aligns what I found for my research around

28:56 winning and success. I feel success, and that feeling then is the cascade of being engaged. Right, that's the byproduct you were talking about. And the artistic has I've already said, is the notion of feeling competent. Also, I feel, so it's still emotion. And then the fun piece is still the feeling of fun. So you what I see that you've done there beautifully is you you have found a compliment along what I call again this is my research. You ask about research is along the emotive scale. What I also know now when you think about this, you know existential stuff and even you all another other stuff is that above that, maybe even in a deeper vein, you get into values and some people say things like, well, I joined this organization because it aligns with my values, and that can actually be a really really strong, compelling source of engagement, which then you know cascades to meeting and then above that, of course is purpose. And then I know we're going to talk about purpose a little bit further here when we get into the risk piece of things. But when you ask about how does that align, I think the way that you describe that is just such a yummy way to situate it and to be able to bring it to a life in a way that almost anybody can understand. It was gorgeous. Greg.

30:15 Well, thanks, and I think that's it too, because, like what you're saying, if someone's trying to find a company that the purpose of the company aligns with their purpose, I mean that really does tie in both. I mean it can tie in with competitive play with like like I think of the Gates Foundation and them wanting to rid the world of malaria. Well, there you go, that's an incredibly clear focus. It's gotten incredibly clear who your enemy is. It's malaria, and you know when you win, and that's when malaria isn't a thing anymore. And that's incredibly competitive play. And so your purpose lining up with that purpose, you go, heck, yeah, that's what I want to play. It's kind of like me, I really enjoy playing foosball and volleyball, but basketball, forget it. That's I'm not I don't enjoy basketball at all. So you've got to find the right thing for you to play at work. And if and if what you're doing right now isn't something that you can translate into competitive player, artistic play, everything can be translated into pure play, I believe, But maybe it's time to look for a different position or just to do some soul searching and figure out a way to change your your own attitude towards your position that you're in.

31:27 One of the things though, too. You you mentioned feeling successful, and I want to I want to put a little bit of nuance on that, because everything that we do, all three types of play, there is success that's involved in that. But there's also risk that's involved in that. And I know we're going to talk about risk in the third break, but this is actually a good intersection of all those things, because when you're when you play something competitively, there's times where you are going to lose, and if you never lose, you're probably not really playing the game. If you are an artist and you don't, you have the only way you're going to become world class at being an artist is to take risks with your art.

32:13 You have to find your own voice. That's incredibly true with stand up comedy, which is my artistic outlet, but that's true with whatever. You know what, If you're the if you're Angus Young, Angus Young plays the guitar in a way that Angus Young from a CDC. It's his signature style of guitar playing. He's found a way to make that his authentic voice through that. But you're gonna have to risk by throwing your authentic voice out there. And there's going to be people who don't like your music, or your sculpture or your art. And there's ways where you're going to if you're doing all this stuff right, you're gonna fail. There's gonna be ways where you're gonna try to have some playful, subversive things that you do at work and it's just not going to be funny. It's not going to go over well, or somebody's going to be offended and you didn't intend that. And that's where I live all day long, because I accidentally piss people off regularly and it's never my intent to. But that's how that's the risk that I take from playing at work in a pure play kind of way. But here's the here's the interesting thing is that I believe that you can become incredibly engaged in what you're doing despite whether you are successful at it or if you fail at it.

33:29 Here's and here's the reason I know this is this is absolutely the case. And it comes back to stand up comedy. Stand Up comedy is a very very interesting a performance medium to engage with. It has been for me, and it wouldn't not everyone to have the same experience. Then let me explain what what's happened to me through stand up comedy is that when I go on stage, either I either I hit a home run and I feel fantastic and I go that was a wonderful feeling. I want to get back up on stage as soon as possible to do that again and to have that, to repeat that wonderful experience of me expressing some things that are important to me, things that I find funny, and an audience to click into that and to respond in the moment in an authentic way that makes me understand that they really are appreciating what I'm doing. That's that's a wonderful experience. The other thing that happens on stage is I go up and it's and it's horrible.

34:31 Like I like, for whatever reason, I don't connect to the audience. Whether that's because I have some new jokes that I'm trying out that don't work, whether that's I'm on an off night, I'm not in the right headspace. Maybe that's the fact that this audience. I just did a show last week for an accounting firm, and right before I get up, but like one of the one of the partners of the firm, basically is yelling at everybody at the Christmas party to like work harder during this major transition they're doing in house, and I'm going that's a horror. It's like, it's like, so when you guys are doing file transfers, you can't just sit there and think that you're working. You've got to do something else while the computer's jugging along. So stop screwing around and work harder. And now welcome to the stage. The guy who's gonna make us laugh Greg Greg. Yeah, exactly. And now fortunately I started off by just basically making fun of him when I went up there, which also was a risk because I'm going this guy could maybe hate me, but fortunately I knew that I personally know the partner who was just up there talking, so I knew he'd take it well.

35:34 But but you know, you can have your audience. But here's the thing that happens with stand up comedy, Like if you well one of the one of the stories I also have. I got to open for weird Al Yankovic to a sold out crowd of thirty five hundred people. This was back in two thousand and four, I believe, and I thought that was going to be my big break with stand up comedy, was opening for weird Al Yankovic. And I went up there, and weird Al Yankovic sold out the thirty five hundred seat stadium to mostly thirteen and fourteen year old boys who were dressed up as Jedis. And they didn't really They're not really my target audience for this comedy that I do. They didn't really have a concept that anyone was going to be at this concert except weird Al singing his song parodies.

36:19 So when I went up there, I was just something that was in the way of them and what they were really there for. And they hated me at that concert and it, and it beat me up emotionally to have that bad of a show like it was. I felt horrible about my show. But but here's the thing. So I was not successful when I opened for weird Al Yankovic. But what happens to me with that as I go, Okay, I wasn't successful. I've got to get back up and do another show to be able to like to like wash the funk off of me of this bad show. That is. So, whether I'm successful or whether I'm not, it drives me back into doing what I'm doing to be the best in the world at what I'm doing, to go I'm not going to lose the next time I get up on stage. I'm not going to have a crappy show that sort of stuff. And that's where you can get incredible engagement, regardless of whether you're actually succeeding or whether you're failing. I know that's the same case with sports teams. They can go out there and they can get their butts handed to them by their opponent, but at the end of it, they can either go, oh, we stink or you can go nope. This doubles my resolve next time to go out and be amazing and to not ever let this happen again. And when you get in that mindset, success or failure doesn't matter. You're engaged. Okay, I gotta say one thing to that one that's just gorgeous what you just said. I completely agree with that, because you know, we as human beings are meaning makers.

37:50 We have the ability to assign the meaning that happens for us in life. That's just how it goes. It doesn't just float into us, right, We create that. So yes, there are you have the ability, and maybe that will change over time. It depends on the situation to be able to change your mindset, to be able to say, Okay, I flopped. However, I'm going to use that to steal myself and resolve myself and do something different in the future. For other people, some of us need coaches. We need help, right, And I'm a big fan of having coaches, not just because I provide that service myself, but I have two coaches myself who work with me, and those people help me resituate sometimes opportunities or challenges that let me see it as an opportunity and not as jeez, you know, yeah, Okay, you're really messed up. Their cortest.

38:32 There's no other way to frame that. You really mucked it up. However, do you realize that there's a whole arena of possibility that comes with being able to address that if you're willing to take quote that risk, and we're going to talk about that next, I know, but being able to get to that place of mindset where we can turn it on a dime like you talked about, it might take something. It might take some outside help to get there. And I appreciate when we can do it on our own, but sometimes we need help absolutely, and I and the funny thing is so again, all of these things, it's nuanced. You can't just say go out there and play work like a sport because I remember when I was in fifth grade, I was on the community you know, I was on a community baseball team and our and it seemed like no matter what sport I played, my team was always like the worst and like I was never we never went to None of my teams ever went to state. We never did anything like that. And with this baseball team that I was on in fifth grade, I remember feeling like it didn't matter what position the coach put me in. I was horrible at it, and I didn't see a path to getting to a point where I could be amazing at it. And so you're exactly right. Competent coaching. If you're trying to implement competitive play into your workplace, you have to have coaching in there because people you'll because you'll get the opposite. I was incredibly disengaged as a baseball player because I just didn't know how to get better. And you're going to find that and work as if you're trying to set up this, uh your job as though it were

40:04 this competition. If people going I'm never gonna win, they're totally going to check out, and you're going to completely get the opposite result than what the opposite of. You're gonna get disengagement if people just don't feel like they can get better or they can win. That was my first year in accounting at the firm I was at. I just I didn't know how to make some partners happy, and it seemed like I constantly got pulled in and they were telling me how you know that I wasn't meeting their expectations. But there wasn't a clear path of if you do these things, you will get better, and that made me go, I need to get another job because life's too short for this one. I got that. Okay, hold that thought. We're gonna go on a quick break here, Greg, I'm Elise Cortez, your host. We went on the air with Greg Kite. He is the co host of a monthly podcast and he's also a regular blogger for the Thriveall CPA network and creates a biweekly cartoon for Going Concern. You join it today from Provo, Utah. After the break, we're gonna talk about intentional taking in some of the merits that come with that. Stay with us. We'll be right back. Friend us on Facebook to keep up with what's empowering the world. Voice America Empowerment. Elise Cortez is a speaker and engagement and development catalyst. She designs and delivers professional development, leadership and engagement workshops and can bring her expertise to your organization. She will help ignite meaningful development within your

41:35 workforce that will increase employee engagement, performance and retention. To learn more or to invite a lase to speak to your organization, please visit her at www dot Elise Cortez dot com. She would welcome the opportunity to help get your employees working on purpose. We are making it easier to listen to the Voice American Talk radio network wherever you go. In addition to listening live, you can check out information about your favorite talk show hosts, discover new talk show personalities and shows to your list of favorites, and listen to all our show archives on demand, all from your iPhone, BlackBerry or Android downloaded from the Apple App Store, BlackBerry app World or Android Market. And get ready to tune in the Voice America Mold Black powered by air Cast Look alone the Stones blackc Get inspired, encouraged and connected on our Lively Award winning Healthy Living power our Star Style Be the star you are with host and empowerment architect Cyndi o Brien live every Wednesday at four pm Pacific on the Voice America Empowerment Channel.

42:47 Tune into the Power Party for positive, uplifting, life changing talk radio. Visit Star Style Radio dot com. Follow us on Twitter for more great ideas at Voice America Empowerment. This is working on Purpose with Elise Cortez. To reach our program today, please call in to one triple eight three four six nine one four one again, that's one triple eight three four six nine one four one. You may also send an email to Elise 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. If you're just tuning in. My guest is Great Kite. He is the co host of a monthly podcast and he's a regular blogger for the Thribal CPA network.

43:57 He also creates a biweekly cartoon for Going Concern. Over the last twelve years, he has established himself as a unique voice in a world of stand up comedy. As if that weren't enough, I'm your host, Alice Cortez. For this last bit here, Greg, I loved the idea of talking about intentional risk taking and how that could be a path to profit, passion, and robust corporate culture. I you had me right there, So let's get into it for this last bit here, intentional risk taking. What do you know? Well, one of the things I know is that I'm an accountant, and accountants are known for being very, very risk averse as a as a species of human being. This is true, yeah, absolutely, And so when I speak to accountants One of the things that I like to tell them is that we as accountants have we're amazing at handling change, the change in complexity, two things that we do because I mean, just just today the both Congress passed the new tax overhaul bill, and and what with eleven days left before tax season starts, they're changing the entire framework with which we do our business, and we didn't know a whole lot about it, and we definitely didn't know the final presentation that until today. But we're amazing at just handling that and rolling with it. We've got we have an incredible high amount of confidence of dealing with change in complexity. What accountants don't do is we don't take risks. But what's weird is that intentional risk taking is just

45:32 self imposed change. And so when I entered accountants, I go, we're amazing at handling change. Taking a risk that isn't being rammed down your throat is I mean, implementing change that's not being rammed down your throat is the same as taking risks. And then I get into it with I'm like, why why why should we take risks as accountants? And the three things that you just mentioned, those those are the three things that I think are incredibly important about about taking risk, And and the first one is the easy one, and it's profit. I mean, that's just the standard. You know, that's almost not even noteworthy, is that profit comes from taking risk.

46:16 If that's why if you know penny stocks, they're they're not very expensive because they're a huge risk, but if one hits, you're doing you're doing amazing. So so we find that even with pricing that the more if you're willing to take more risk, things are going to be less expensive and you'll end up with a bigger profit when they do hit. So that that's almost not not that interesting to talk about, but it's also there because when you talk to accounts or anyone in business, one of the main things that they're that they're trying to accomplish with their business. Not that it shouldn't be the purpose of the business, but it should be a function of the businesses is to turn a profit for yourself and for your shareholders. And that's only going to happen with risk taking. But then some of the more interesting things that come out of risk taking is that risk taking is a path towards discovering what you're passionate about. And we hear so much and we read so much about how important it is to be pursuing the thing, you know, pursuing your bliss, finding those things that really make you want to jump out of the bed in the morning and get going on your day. The problem is most people are Most people struggle at even identifying what they are passionate about. And what I've found is that if you're intentionally taking risks, you will discover your passion.

47:44 And here's how, and it's basically what we just talked about before, was if you take a risk on something and you fail at it, but you're still excited to go and do that same thing again, you just found something that you're passionate about. I'm passionate about comedy because if I kill it, I'm excited about doing it again. And if I totally thank I'm excited about going and doing it again. My prople obviously I want to do it better. But that's how I discovered that that was something that was a passion of mine. So if someone has difficulty identifying their passion, they need to start trying things. They need to start taking these risks. And if you take a risk and you fail at it, but you still are like, I gotta go do that again. You're on the path of finding what you're passionate about. Oh my gosh, hold on, Greg, hold on, hold the phone. Really great because I hear it all the time that that was stellar advice. Greig. My listeners asked me all the time. At least, how in the world I want to find my purpose? How do I do it? Well? Trying new things? That makes a lot of sense. And if if along the way of trying those things that they don't quite get it, but they recognize they want to go after it again that there's something there. They hit a vein. You have really isolated something that is yummy and gorgeous for our listeners. Thank you for that, right well, And i'd want to and I'd want to make a very clear caveat because to what you said, it's not I think I mean it's it's a caveat, or at least it's a different texture to what you just said, because I don't think it's just trying new things. I think it's you pushing yourself

49:14 outside of what's comfortable. Because I could go and I could, you know, I could try that I could try the donut at the bakery that I've never tried before, but that's not that's not that's not the same thing. I need to When you're when you're on the hunt for passion, you've got to do things that are making you uncomfortable. You're gonna go this is kind of stupid, this is kind of this is this, this even makes me feel foolish that I'm going at that's go to go try that. And if after making a fool of yourself, you're like, I could do that again, then you then you did it. You found it. You found something that's gonna that's that's that's right there for you. With passion, that lines up with your purpose, your meaning, all that stuff. It all folds together. When you take a risk and you fail, but you want to get back up on that horse again because because something about it speaks to to the core of who you are. I love it. Okay, go out of your comfort zone. Thank you for that. The donor's example was fantastic because you're right, on any given day, we could probably get a donut.

50:13 You're right, okay, got it. Thank you. It's got to make you uncomfortable because and that's that's the risk. It's not you know, and I'd say, you know, don't well, I'd say, don't you know, don't take risks that are maybe going to you know, you've got you've got to choose the right risk as well. But at the same time, you know, and that's the other thing. I just spoke with a guy and he was like, you know what, in our age with the Internet and social media, you can monetize any passion that you have. It might not be something that you get to immediately, but if you're consistently putting out content related to whatever you're passionate about, you're going to find the other people in the world who are passionate about that as well, and they will pay to hear you talk about your passion that you share with them. So it's possible to turn anything. Even though if you go there's no way anybody's going to pay me for this, that you're wrong, people will you got to You got to just be consistent with your content creation around that thing you're passionate about now, because I know that our hour has whipped by most it.

51:20 Then the other thing that risk taking can do is it can help you build a robust corporate culture and here's what and this is also the way to structure risk so that it's so that's a no fail risk. Like if you succeed, great, If you fail, that's actually also great. And what it is is if is you got to look at your core If you go to your company, hopefully you've already done the job of trying to identify your core values as a company. And if you've got a list of core values, you need to go through there and go, do I have a story that backs up every single one of these core values? Because if you don't have a story where you have you where you have risked something based on those core values, then I call BS and that's not really a core value.

52:13 Like, for instance, if you say that your company a core value is being incredibly ethical with everything that you do in all your business dealings, that you are an ethical company, and that's a core value to you, I would say, tell me a story of the time where you did you have you ever fired a client because you thought that client might be doing something that's that's uh, you know, below board. Do you think that did you fire somebody just because you're like going, they're not maybe doing anything illegal? But we just don't feel comfortable with them. I want to know a story about how you you are, how you risk you how you intentionally gave something up because because you because you're so committed to that core value, So taking risks that are based on your core values, any risk that you take, or you could say, hey, I risked with this core value, but we totally that launched us into a whole new thing and we ended up winning.

53:12 I want to hear those stories as well. Every single core value that you have, you should be thinking, how am I taking a risk for that? If innovation is a core value that you have, how are you risking on innovation? Are you still playing with scared Are you still like a startup who's going we got these big ideas and we're going to throw it out there and see if we hit a home run? Or are you starting to play with scared money where you're going, well, we're only going to really throw out something new if we have focus grouped it and if we've if we've gotten to the point where we're sure where it's gonna. I mean, those things are good, but I want to I want to see how you're risking to be an innovative company, because that's going to turn me on. And that's how you that's how you go. If you want to have an ethical company, tell all your people about how you fired your biggest client because you were worried that they weren't being ethical and what they were doing and you didn't want to be associated with an unethical company. That's a culture that you just built in a powerful way by taking a risk by firing them, because that's a you risk. They're your biggest I mean, even if they're not your biggest client. If you fire a client, that's revenue that you just kissed goodbye to stand by your principles. So again you're if you if you are risking based on your core values, that's how you really create those turn those core values from a document that you put on a wall that people kind of look at every now and then to something that's vibrant and robust and is really what your company's all about. Oh my gosh, Greg, that was gorgeous,

54:42 really gorgeous. Great points. And here we are close to the end of the show here and I'd like to give you the last word as you as you probably know, so in say thirty to forty five seconds. What do you want to leave our listeners with today? I think what I'd want to do is that I want to I guess i'd want to encourage people in the area of pure play. And there's a few ways that people can engage in pure play at work. So first thing, there's three things that I think you need to implement pure play in a very engaging way at work. First, as, you need courage, because if you're going to be doing something where you're kind of screwing around at work, it's it's it's a it's a challenge that you may fail, and you have to have the courage to do that. The other thing is you need you need courage. You also need creativity because I've also done improv comedy, and we talk about improv comedy finding the game within the game. So it's like there's a particular goal you're trying to get to as a company. Seconds to have fun with that while you're pursuing that goal. So sorry, and I just spoke over what did you say that I missed? I said, just you got ten seconds, okay. And then you also need to be a little subversive, So you've got to you've got to be well, not where you're trying to throw over the you know you're trying to tank your company. But it's pure play.

56:07 There's a there's kind of an impishness to pure place. If you've got courage, creativity, and just the right amount of subversiveness, that's how you're gonna that's how you're going to implement that pure play at work. Wait to finish, Greg, I thank you so much for being my guest. I've thoroughly enjoyed you and I'm so glad our passive crossed you will beat my life for a while. Thank you for being with me. Thank you for having you with the Blast. So if you want to learn more about Greg Kite and all he's up to, there's much go to his website. It's Greg Kite dot com. That's g r E g k y t E. And we'll be on the air next week. We're another nourishing conversation. Catch us in and remember that work is at least one day of our lives, 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 A last Cortez, every Wednesday at six pm Eastern time, preep on Pacific time on the Voice America Empowerment Channel.

57:04 This week, find your life's purpose at work