Positive Emotional Engagement at Work: Distinguishing Human Value in the Age of Technology

0:00 The topics and opinions express in the following show are solely those of the hosts and their guests and not those of W FOURCY Radio. It's employees are affiliates. We make no recommendations or endorsements for radio show programs, services, or products mentioned on air or on our web. No liability, explicit or implied shall be extended to W FOURCY Radio or its employees are affiliates. Any questions or comments should be directed to those show hosts. Thank you for choosing W FOURCY 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 Relise Cortes. Welcome back to the Working on Purpose program. There's a journeing it again this week. Great to have you this program has been on air since February of twenty fifteen. It is a pride and joy for me. I'm your host, doctor Las Cortes, joining you live from Dallas. That's home base for me. If we have not met yet and you don't know me, I'm a management consultant, organizational logo therapist, speaker and author. My team and I at Gusto Now help companies to enliven it and fortify their operations by articulating their purpose and building inspirational leaders and cultures activated by meeting and purpose to turn those companies from a flatline EKG to a vibrant destination workplace.

1:37 There people are intrinsically a molivated to perform at their best, grown to their full potential, and are committed to stay and dynamically deliver on the company's mission. You learn more about us and how we can work together at gustodashnow dot com and more about me and my books and speaking at Eliscortes dot com. Now. Getting into today's program with us is Edward Hess. He is the Professor Emeritus of Business Administration and Fellow and beat an Executive in Residence Emeritis at the Darden Graduate School of Business University of Virginia. He's the author of Own Your Own Work Journey, The Path to Meaningful Work and Happiness in the Age of Smart Technology and Radical Change, which we'll be talking about today. He joined you today from Charlotteville, Virginia. Ed, welcome to Working on Purpose.

2:19 It's wonderful to be with you. Thank you for the invitation. Very welcome. And Isa said to you before we got on air, I love your library. I'm coming over. You'd be welcome. You'd be welcome. Thank you, And you know, I love it that you've written several books, fifteen or sixteen I think it is, And this is the one we're going to be talking about. This is one of your latest, if not your latest, Own your Own, Own, your Own Work Journey. I always really applaud this whenever I have authors on which is the most of the majority of the time, because I know how much effort it takes to create a book. So Ed, thank you for writing another book for us my pleasure. This most important book I've ever written. And so it was very important to me and meaningful to put something out there that's dealing with what's going on in our society and technology today and it's a how to book, as you know, and it's a short book, and it's got lots of you know, practices and stuff, so it's a it's not a big heavy reads it's a heavy learned book. You know. I can't let that phrase go that you just dangled out there. This is your most important book, and you said a couple of things in context. So let's take that home.

3:35 Ed, Why is this your most important book you've written sixteen? Is it fifteen? Fifteen? I supposed to book because we as a country are in a technology race. We've always been in a capitalist race, and smart technology is transforming at a very fast rate how we basically how we make money and who's going to make money, and so this is the most challenging. The era that we're entering now will be the most changing time for every human being in our country. More quote, if you want to look at the Industrial Revolution or the Great Depression, the numbers are just outstanding from the outside.

4:32 They're outstanding because they're good people from the people that have done the research. And we're talking about Oxford Diversity saying that by twenty thirty, twenty five to forty seven percent of our workforce United States will be unemployed. All right, it's a lot of people. And when you live in a country that doesn't have a strong social safety net, that is a heck of a problem. We also, technology is going to be smart enough that the best scientists are saying that every five years somebody is going to have a new job because technology is going to continue to advance and do more and more. So for the first time in human history, we human beings will have work if we can do types of work the technology can do. Technology will take over everything that it can do well. And you know, you can see chat GPT four is already heavily advanced. Yes, within eight to nine months, and you know we're going to be at chat GPT five, six and seven. And the smartest AI people in the world have basically said in the last sixty days that within three years the high clihood we human beings will be the second smartest people in the world. Oh my gosh, so we're gonna yeah, uh uh, this is so important what you just served up there at Wow.

6:05 Okay, so two things. One, you writing your book and now I really see the frame of that that that means given all of this smart technology and the radical change that we're going through. You talk about how this means we will need to excel at learning, unlearning and relearning at the pace of change, and you call this hyper learning. Yes, yes, and and it's you know, to be able businesses or there's going to be consolidation of businesses. Businesses going to have to evolve. Well, businesses are involving, all right. The employees have to evolve, evolve learning, unlearning, relearning at the pace of technological change. That's very hard for us to because of the way we are wired is human beings. It would be hard for any human being to do. But the fact is technologies going to force us to rewire ourselves to basically embrak the reality that we have to be constantly learning at a pace. And in order to do that, we do take ownership of what's going on inside of our body. We have to learn how to take ownership of our ego, our mind, our body, our emotions, our words, our behaviors, how we listen, how we think, and how we build carrying trusting relationships with other human beings. And the reality is that

7:40 there's only going to be a certain type of jobs that we humans are going to be needed to do. There's really only going to be three types of jobs. That's where I wanted to go next. Please, yes, thinking in ways the smart technology can't think, critical thinking, innovative thinking, going into the unknown, figuring things out, making moral rems, okay, making decisions. There's not lots of data, all right. The second excelling and building care and trusting emotional positive relationships with other human beings. In reality, that is going to be the key differentiator between human beings and now the emotional side. Yes. Then the third is excelling and doing trade jobs that require it. So human dexterity, moving around, moving your arms, you know, climbing up something, climbing down, drilling and making iterative diagnosis of what's the problem. We don't know what the problem is, what is it?

8:41 And an iterative tries to solving the problem. If you can do one of those skills, and it's ultimately going to come down to emotional skills going to be mission critical, then you have a chance of basically being employed in staying employee. The problem is, the science is clear. We human beings are not wired to be our adaptive learners or hyper learners, all right. We are not wired that way, all right. Our brain is wired to go out in the world, my brain, your brain, to seek confirmation of what we believe, affirmation of our ego, which is our story about who we are, and cohesiveness of how our stories works. And the fact is is that we are going to have to learn how to overcome and we wire ourselves so we are highly adaptive learners, learn, unlearn, and relearn.

9:46 Is the pace a change that can be done, all right. It takes hard work, it takes time, it takes commitment, but all of the ways of doing that are based in science and based in the great philosophies, in the Great religions. Some of the practices that people have to adopt are thousands of years old. How ironically, it's pretty ironic. It's rather ironic. Yes, it's it's sort of ironic. Technology is taking us up here, and what has to happen is that we have to basically, like in a plane, we have to fly up and go side by side with the technology and that uplift, all right, the uplift, the model for the uplift, the values, the behaviors and how you do it is comes from seven great religions and the innersosophies, and it's never really been adopted a lot in the United States because of our culture, and you know, we're very competitive culture, and so all of a sudden, we human beings have got to basically become more human with each other. That is stunningly beautiful the way that you articulated that ad and it's both horribly inspiring and obviously also very scary.

11:11 So one of the things that you say in the book, and I completely agree with that, is you talk about that most people are not well equipped to be able to do this work in order to be able to positively relate to other people. And you go on to say specifically that few people can have learned how to manage their emotions and how to generate positive emotions and how to manage the negative emotions. So it's one thing to be in touch with your emotions. It's quite another to be able to manage your emotions, especially the negative ones, and generate positive emotions. And you put forth that as being quite a distinguishing quality for people, a necessary one to learn, I should say, yes, a very necessary one to learn, because we go back to the you know, the three. The real thing that's going to differentiate to the technology is building, caring, trusting, positive emotional relationship with other human beings, all right, and so that's and so what is that? Do we truly listen to people? Are we open minded? All right? Do we manage our behaviors? Our words? Do we basically make sure do we ask them? You know, let's take an example. You know, people in the business world, no matter what your job is, you're working on something and you get on it, get you get in a conversation, and all of a sudden, the conversation becomes a competition. Who's right, who's doing the right thing? And people have got said, whoa, let's slow down, all right, we just got to get to the

12:43 right answer. And I need to understand where you're coming from. And so making meaning conversations with people are going to be mission critical and going forward, collective intelligence, the intelligence of the team is more important than the intelligence of ed. All right. It's the team. And the science is overwhelming, and you know, the men are going to be unhappy when they hear the science. But you know, the science, the science n I T Outstanding University Technology and Engineering, Carnegie Mellon same thing. MIT started out and did five research studies to figure out how do you optimize people working together? How do you optimize collective intelligence? And those five studies over here, all right, came to the following conclusion. Soon you have teams of five people, the best collaborators, the best learners, the people who go and perform the best. Okay, those teams were five women and no men. The second best team four women, one man. The third best team three women, two men. You see where this is going, I do, Carnegie Mellon.

14:09 Carnegie Mellon said, that's all crazy, all right, y'all are just missing it. So they did their three research studies and the same thing. So US men, me including me, all right, us men have got to sit back and say this emotional stuff's important. How do I come across? How do I truly listen to somebody? How do I make meaning with somebody instead of competing with somebody? How do I be totally present and not thinking about my answer or thinking about something else? And how do I behave Do I lean forward into people all right? Or do I sit back and say, you know, I'm not sure I understood what you said. This is what I heard? Is that what you said? And if a percent.

15:05 No, I didn't mean that. Okay, Well what did you mean? Well, then now I understand what you said a little better. Well, what if this happened or what if we did this? Instead of saying I got the right answer, you're the dummy? All right? Yay, I win. No, that's what's The quality of the conversations in the workplace going forward will be the key determiner whether those businesses stay in business. It's that simple. Well, thank you for that, Ed. I feel like I might have a little job security, So thank you for that. Really good news. So with that note, listeners and viewers, you've got to contemplate what just Ed just shared with you. It's pretty heavy stuff. Let's grab our first break. I'm your host, doctor Relasee Cortes. We're on the air with Ed Edward Hess who has written fifteen books more than one hundred and sixty practitioner articles in over sixty darden cases dealing with innovation, learning, cultures, and systems. Today, we're talking about his latest book, Own Your Own Work Journey, The Path and Meaningful Work and Happiness in the age of smart technology and radical change. Stay wis Wally right back and we'll talk about the ego afterwards. Doctor Elise Cortes 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,

16:38 performance, and commitment within the workforce. To learn more or to invite a lease to speak to your organization, please visit her at elisecortes dot com. Let's talk about how to get your employees working on purpose. This is working on Purpose with doctor Elise court Tes. To reach our program today or to open a conversation with Elise, send an email to a lease a lisee at eliscortes dot com. Now back to working on purpose, th inkteresting with us, and welcome back to working on purpose. I'm your host, doctor Relase Cortes, as I too, am dedicated to help them create a world where people realize their potential at work and are led by inspirational leaders that help them find and contribute their greatness, and we do business that betters the world.

17:30 I continue to write my own books, so the last one that came out in March of twenty twenty three is called The Great Revitalization. How activating meeting and Purpose can radically and live in your business, and I wrote it to help leaders understand what today's workforce really wants, which is around meeting, purpose, connection, and then it offers about twenty two best practices to help equip and guide them to create that leadership and culture. You can learn more about my books at Eliscortes dot com and get them on Amazon as well if you are just joining the program. My guest is Ed Hess and we're talking about his book Own Your Own Work Journey, The Path to Meaningful Work and Happiness in the Age of Smart Technology and radical Change. So one thing is one of the things I didn't tell you, but many of my listeners who've been listening for a while no, is that the show is curated. So what I mean by that is that I generally only talk about topics that really advance the conversation we've already had, so I don't tend to rehash and less there's a different perspective on that. So it's kind of hard to do after almost nine years. But one of the things that is really interesting to me about your work, Ed is how you talk about the importance of having a quiet ego. I do not believe I've ever run across this before, so I would love for you to first talk a little bit about what is a quiet ego, and then we'll get into why it's beneficial to try to actually attain it. What is to quiet ego. A quiet ego is a person being able to create a story about themselves that is not just about themselves and

19:03 not just about themselves being the best of winner or being right. And a quiet ego enables a person to go out in the world with an open mind so you can learn better, all right. The research is basically states we go out in the world to affirm what we think is right. We don't go out in the world and ask people questions hoping that the people give us good information that maybe we need to change our mind. We go out and ask questions, and we're looking for pats on the head, little pats on the head, good job ed, good job ed, And all that does is just loost me up more, all right. And the fact is is that a quiet ego is the result the result of personal training and a philosophy that okay, it's more important that I get to the right answer than it'd be my answer. And also I don't know as much as everybody else may know. Everybody may know something different. So how do I basically come to the table and not having my self worth determined by did I win table competition?

20:30 All right? And why is it quiet ego important? It helps me to be more open minded, all right. I won't be so defensive when I'm challenged. I thankful pointing things out. It helps me And so that helps me be a better listener. And we were talking previously about the fact that the best ideas come forth teams, collective teams, having good, honest conversations that are not if you will, people just you know, trying to prove their right and you're wrong, and people interrupting people, people not even listening. People multitasking. You know, you go to you go to a meeting and you see somebody's multitasking. What does that say to you? It says he doesn't want to hear what I want to talk about, or he doesn't care what I talk about it, or he this or he that.

21:30 You know, a quiet ego is coming up with a new story about who I am. And in the book I talk about five new smart, new smart principles. I'm defined not by what I know or how much I know, but by the quality of my thinking, listening, relating, and collaborating. Let's go slowly on this. I'm not defined by what I know or how much I know, but by the quality quality of my thinking, listening, relating, collaborating. My mental models, my stories about how my world works is not how the world works. I'm not my ideas. Okay, I've got an idea. Okay, what does that mean. I'm not my ideas. I think this may be something good. I'm not going to, basically, you know, risk my life on it. I don't want to risk friendships. I don't want to risk us doing something wrong. It's just my idea. It's just my idea. I must decouple my beliefs. That's my stories about myself, not my values. Talking about ethics and honesty in that decouple my beliefs from my ego. Okay, my ego. And I'm trying to transform transform my e go in order that I can be open minded

23:03 and be a good learner, good listener and make the right decisions with other people's help, or if I need to make decision myself. I'm getting more views, so I make sure I'm not missing anything. So I must treat my what I think I believe is hypothesis. These are my best guests. And notice the best guess is not the right thing all the time. It's my best guess that I need to constantly go out there and test. And if I find that I'm wrong or I find better data, a new data or new information, I easily transform my idea into something that's better. And I'm going to make mistakes and failures the opportunities to learn. All Right, the smartest person in the room is not the person that gets the answer right all the time, because no one does that right. And the other thing that we have to understand it because in this is our wiring. Okay, so we're trying to affirm this ego. I got to feel good about myself under the old ego. To feel good about myself, I gotta win.

24:30 Ah, to feel good about yourself, you got to come to the best answer for your for the company, for yourself, or your family, whatever the question is. And you need to have in put from other people. Well did you look at this, did you think of this? Why do you believe that, and the questions that it's interesting. I've done workshops with leaders and military leaders, corporate leaders, governmental leaders, and I'd give them a diagnostic And what's so amazing is, and I've been thousands of people who have taken this the two biggest issues people emit finally a knit to is their biggest problems in having conversations is have a big ego. Okay, and they don't really listen and so and you've got basically, in a fast paced world where technology change all right, very quickly over a week, over a month, we're seeing that. Okay, how am I going to be this adaptable?

25:40 Okay, well I got to be open minded? Okay, to do that, I got to have a quiet ego. I have a quiet ego also means I got to have a quiet mind. Wow. It just so happens is all of the practices of having a quieent will help me have a quiet ego. Oh wow, okay, this is sounding interesting. Then it goes from there, and you know, in psychology, a quiet ego means have an accrid view of your abilities, achievements, being able to acknowledge your mistakes. I made a mistake, I was wrong, you're improfessions and limitations, being open to new ideas and contradictory information. In fact, the best thinkers they go out and go look for this confirmation. Yes, you sit around the table and you say, what would make us wrong? Have we looked at went and got that data? A look at it? No, Well, let's go out in the world and prove we're wrong, and we come back together in a week and let's see what we got. That's where you get to good thinking. That's where you get too good listening. That's where you get to being if you will new smart all right, because it's nothing wrong with being smart if you play the game right, all right.

27:03 And that means having a quiet ego, uh and the quiet mind which allows you to relate to people. So that's that's the And everybody makes mistakes, but everybody wants to hide from them. Very few people and meetings apologize when they say something wrong to somebody that offends somebody. They just assume, oh'll let them tough it out, all right. No, you're dealing with human beings, okay. And the best one of the best practices that I've seen and people have used is before when you're in a conversation somebody before and they say, Okay, that's what I think. Before you say, well, here's what I think. You ask a question, this is what I heard.

27:56 Is that what you meant? Then you can say what you want or I'm not sure I understood you. I heard this, But show the person I'm actively trying to understand you. That shows that I respect you, That shows that I care about you, That shows that I'm not in competition with you. And where does all that lead to? Basically success? So, listeners and viewers, what Ed has just shared there, it really is gold. And I would tell you it is the secret to having you know, viable, good and meaningful work in the future and being feeling fulfilled in life and work. And so I don't want you to gloss over what he just shared with you, those those five new smart person principles that he just put out in the book. When you get his book, he really gives you some nice places to reflect, to consider how to fold it into your person because what he just gave you right now is probably going to sound a little conceptual and cerebral. So the exercise he put in his book will allow you to fold it into yourself. So you can actually make it yours powerfulat very very powerful. Okay, all right, So what I want to go to next here because I want you to cover those for sure. I do want to make sure that we recognize some of the things that we tend to naturally do because we're going to have to overcome them. So one of the things that you talk about in the book is when our story is challenged about whatever

29:30 it does we think we know, or what we believe or what we think is right, we generally meet that with three d's. We respond automatically with three d's. What are those three d's? Again? Defend, I defend what I'm saying. I deflect what you're saying, and I deny, all right when I'm called out, And so it's defend, deflect, and deny and you know we got and we'll go back. No, oh, okay, we've got to be open minded. Somebody agrees with us. We asked questions, why do you think that? All right? What data do you have? How'd you learn that? Well? If that happened, where would that take us? How would that differ from what I'm talking about? That's the conversation is about. And going back to a point I made that.

30:26 It's clear to me that success in the business world going forward is going to be highly dependent upon the quality of the conversations that take place inside the organization. And so this is also what we're talking about, because the speed at which everything is happening and changing is going to not going to basically slow down, it's going to increase, and so we had to be prepared. It's if we think about it, AI, smart technology is going to transform how we work and how we live, end of question. And that transformation, that transformation requires people taking ownership of that, and the transformation to becoming a highly adaptive learner or a hyper learner is what we're talking about here. With the practices, this is not going to be oh, you know, I'm ten years to retirement or twenty years to retirement. I can I can look through doing what I'm doing. Ah okay, I mean it's pretty clear the pace of what the technology is going. I mean, you know, I'm sure lots of the people are into the technology. You can see it.

31:57 You can see what's just been announce in the last two weeks. It is mind boggling, Yes, mind boggling. What's going to be you know, in your iPhone mind boggling on how you're going to be able to to you know, have smart technology do parts of your work? Well, how do you know smart technology is saying it's true or not? If you're not a good thinker, if you're not a you know, if you don't challenge the technology. If you not, don't go out yourself and ask some other smart people about this stuff. Oh, let's let our listeners reflect on that. Sorry, Ed, let's let me let me let's well, grab our last break here, hold that thought, think about it for a second. I'll pick it up in here just a second. So I'm your host, doctor Alice Cortez. We've been on the area with Ed has who has written fifteen books and more than one hundred and sixty practitioner articles and over sixty dardened cases dealing with innovation, learning, cultures, and systems. Today we're talking about his latest book, Own Your Work Journey, The Path Toading for Work and Happiness in the Age of smart technology and radical change. We've been talking a bit about the importance of developing what he calls a quiet ego and the importance of in cultating the five habits that he has put forth in the book After the Breaker and talk a little bit more about some ways we can intervene in how we can become more smart for today, Steve, what will be right back? Doctor Elise Cortez is a management consultant specializing in meaning and purpose.

33:39 An inspirational speaker and author. She helps companies visioneer for a greater purpose among stakeholders and develop purpose inspired leadership and meaning infused cultures that elevate fulfillment, performance, and commitment within the workforce. To learn more or to invite a lease to speak to your organization, please visit her at Eliscortes dot com. Let's talk about how to get your employees working on purpose. This is working on Purpose with doctor Elise Cortes. To reach our program today or to open a conversation with Elise, send an email to a lease a lisee at eliscortes dot com. Now back to working on purpose. Thanksteresting with us, and welcome back to working on Purpose. I'm your host, Doctor release Cortes. I mentioned in the Last Brick that I put my last book out in March of twenty twenty three, called The Great Vitalization. What I did to accompany that and to help you along your journey is I created a three page assessment for you to be able to see the extent to which your organization is meeting the standard of today's discerning workforce. You can find it at Gusto dash noow Orliscortes dot com if you are just joining the program. My guest is Edward Hess.

34:54 We're talking about his latest book, Own Your Own Work Journey, The path you need for work and happiness in the age of smart technology and radical change. So before we get into some of these ways we can intervene too to become more smart for today, I do want to situate a little bit more deeply because I think it really bears repeating. You also talk about really the work of psychologist June Price Tangy, and she talks about the psychological attributes of humility. So we've been talking about a quiet ego. I think it also makes sense to supplement that with this idea of humility. Can you share a few of the things that you talk about in the book that come from her work that relate to attributes of humility. Yes, yes, she's a great psychiatist and admire her work, and she's come up with basically five attributes to define humility, and I'll just read through them because I want her words to be perfect for you. Having an accurate parentheses, not over or under estimated view of one's abilities and achievements. So not to have this big ego mind that I'm the smartest one in the room. I know everything, I'm smarter than everybody else. Be accurate about my abilities and achievements. Number two, being able to acknowledge one's makes imperfections, gaps and knowledge and limitations.

36:22 Oh my goodness. And that's like number two. That's one of the hardest things for people to do, all right, I mean think about it and your last conversations with people at work. When's the last time someone said I made a mistake. Yeah, I made a mistake. Think about Not only it takes courage, but it sends a huge message that wait a minute, just because I made a mistake doesn't mean I can't doesn't mean that I can figure out what really to do. That allows me to be open to new ideas, to contradictory information and advice or fourth statement, keep mine in their mind, keep my abilities accomplishments in perspective. There's the big ego she's talking about, don't you know, don't keep patting yourself on the head and you know, strutting around like you know, you're the biggest pony in the in the woods. Now, I mean, keep your abilities in perspective. Sometimes you get lucky, so you get lucky. Sometimes you're unlucky, so you don't beat yourself up all the time. You try to figure out what's going on. Have a little focus on self or a tendency to forget the self.

37:43 And that's where the quiet ego comes into. That's where the mindfulness meditation comes into. To have the quiet mind, because usually when people go to meetings and they're talking with somebody, their mind is talking to them. All right. Not only do we have to learn how to our ego, we learn need to learn how to quiet our mind so that go into a meeting or have a conversation with anybody, you know, I'll find it this way a state of inner stillness and calmness that enables you to go out in the world with your most non judgentle, fearless, quiet ego, quiet mind that enables you to learn unlearned and relearn it to pay the technological change that is the run. That is the home run, a state of inner stillness.

38:35 To have the inner stillness, you got to have the quiet ego, and you've got to learn how to take quiet your mind. And you know it goes back thousands a year. Mindfulness meditation, all right, And so many of the superstar people that I've been fortunate to never meet, every day they do mindfulness meditation all right, in the morning, some times during the day, and then every night, all right, they then reflect and grade themselves. All right. Well, the leading leadership coaches in the world is name number one the last ten years. All right. Here's a leadership coach, and there's lots of leadership coaches that are good, not just him, but he basically has an accountability partner. And every night at the same time, his accountability partner calls them and asks him, did you do what you've told me you're going to do this week? And so we all sort of need to take into this. We can't change ourselves by ourselves. It's much easier if we have people an accountability partner to learn how to think better, to think, how to manage the ego, to do our mindfulness meditation and mindfulness meditation is mission critical to the e because a quiet mind, by definition, your ego can't be talking to your mindful mindful meditation helps you have that quiet

40:08 ego. Okay, and and you're saying, well, something's going through my mind. What do I do? Focus on your breath, Breathe in, bread out, focus on your breath till the work, till the thoughts go away, don't engage with them, try then to listen. And so all of us comes back to what you're what you're talking about is is it is? How do we? And it will take people the journey. Oh, you've got to ownership yourself. And the ultimate gold is I want to bring my best self to work to the world every day, whether it's home, whether it's whatever. And I know that it's going to take me a long time to be really really good. In fact, it's going to take me the rest of my life. And so okay, this is a journey I have to be on. It can take you start out taking five to ten minutes in the morning, five to ten minutes at night. Really very very smart people who are very very successful work up to thirty minutes forty five minutes in the morning or an hour in the morning. Okay. I know many people who are leaders in the world who meditate an hour in the morning and an hour at night. That's how they bring that calm in stillness. And the research is overwhelming. The highest level of human thinking occurs when the human

41:43 being is totally still in calm comes from the Santa Fe Institute. There's lots of research. That's how the big idea happens. And so we're talking about practices that are proven and that people will help people be on new journey of Okay, how do I basically take all this stuff in and you know, and and think about it and change and you know, it's like I got to constantly be changing. No, you know it was the old way of working was pretty good. Well, sorry about it. The old way's gone, right, wake up time, Time to move, wake up time.

42:27 M hm. The other thing that you that she you mentioned her book that she wrote about that I want to just sort of give a little bit more, a little bit more attention to I think you talked to talk to you mentioned it, but I wanted to take it deeper. And that was what she says is about appreciating the value of all things in the many ways other people and things contribute to the world. This is so important, especially for a quiet ego, right, So to be able to wouldn't it be amazing if you could just be gobsmacked by other people and the way they went about doing something instead of judging it and saying it was wrong. You're you're doing it wrong cause you're not doing it the way that I would do it. How the world will be better right there? Yes, you are so correct, and thank you for calling call that out. You are so correct.

43:10 And that ability to be open to listen and to make meeting with others and when somebody you know comes up with something very good like that, appreciating the value, all right, that brings in the need for having gratitude practices, absolutely offering gratitude to that person. For a while, I didn't know that or I didn't see that. Thank for helping me, Thank you for helping me. You've got to have a quiet ego to say thank you for helping me, all right, So you don't get the gratitude practices which comes after mindfulness meditation practice. You don't get to gratitude practices if you're not already coming down with the ego. Because the big ego person, the big ego person.

44:02 You know, even if the ego person didn't know it, he says, Oh, I would have thought of that. Yeah, that was just right in the back of my head. Okay, but you're so correct, appreciating the value of all things in the many ways other people and things contribute to the world. Yeah, yes, that is just it's it's not just about me. It's not just about me. And I mean, as I look back on my life, I've been very fortunate. Okay, I mean I've had I call them angels. I've had twenty five angels. You mentioned someone your book, it's so beautiful. Yeah, twenty five angels, people that that basically saw something in me or gave me opportunities where I wasn't really prepared for them. I've had three different career in my life, totally different careers because of other people. And so you are so in this appreciating the value of all things. And when you do, when you say something, if you will gratitude practice this. The biggest thinking void in our countries a lack of critical thinking. The biggest human challenge in our country is managing our emotions. Interesting being able to manage your emotions, and that means generate positive

45:37 emotions and manage negative emotions is mission critical. Well, generating positive emotions. We can learn how to generate positive emotions when we're have this feeling of ego or this feeling of I gotta be right, and we can generate positive emotions which will also calm us down. All right, it's not about me. It's about getting the right rule. It's not about me. I don't have to be you know, I'm not competing with Jim or Jane. I'm competing myself. My biggest competition is that is period into question. Now, that doesn't mean I'm the smartest guy in the world. My biggest competition is and I you know, I've been doing this a long time. You know, every day I still do my daily practices. And it comes from the science of deliberate practice, all right, which comes out of Carnegie Mellon. You look at great athletes, great musicians, great artists have daily practices. They keep working at it, they keep working at it, and they hold themselves accountable. All right, great warriors, all right, et cetera. So we know what to do, all right, or the science is out there and it's doable. It's not rocket science. Any person can do it.

47:07 Any person can do it. Oh you know, Oh go ahead, we're getting close to the end of my horse. I wanted to give you it also wrap up. Go ahead though with your thoughts. I'll just say quick. I mean, I have a granddaughter and I've been talking to her about mindfulness meditation to help her be calm in college. All of a sudden, she's doing three to four minutes a day. All of a sudden, she sends text. You know, my nickname is Poppy Pop. Stuff works. It does, Yeah, it does work. It's so beautiful, ed. I really I feel grateful that I got I'm the recipient of your wisdom, your knowledge, your heart, and I get to share it with listeners around the globe that listen to the show. And these people that are tuning in are doing so because they want to become better versions of themselves. They want to become better leaders, and they want to join organizations that make the world a better place. And about say thirty seconds, what would you like to leave them with Effectuate those desires and practices and use of tools, because that will increase your probability of successful and stay on that journey. Because it is a great journey and you'll never have any doubt about it as you're going forward, and don't leave anybody behind, all right, if there's somebody you can

48:38 help, try and help beautiful Ed. It's a delight to know you and have read your book and share with listeners and viewers and have you here so and as I said to you, you know, I have a tendency to find myself on the doorsteps of my guests, and then you know it's time for dinner, so I'll see you. Then. I really enjoyed you listeners and viewers. If you want to learn more about Ed, has his teaching, his books, anything about him, start by going to own your Work journey dot com. Last week, if you missed the live show, you can always catch it via recorded podcast. We were on air with Talia Fox talking about her habit model she puts forth in her book called The Power of Conscious Connection for Habits to transform how you live and lead. She really helped us understand how learning these four basic habits elevates our ability to meaningfully connect and get the results we're seeking. Next week, we'll be on the air with Mike Lee talking about the work he does and his new book, New Rules for the Future of Leadership, How the bold and the driven can elevate engagement when the war for talent and creative culture of belonging. See you there, Remember that work is 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 Cortes, each one week on W four CY.

50:01 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.