Unlocking the Power of Work: Embracing the “Work Positive” Mindset

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. 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 Elise Cortez. Welcome back to the Working and Purpose Program again. Thanks for tuning back in. Great to have you again. This show has been brought to you with passion and price since February of twenty fifteen. Already I am your host, doctor Elis Cortes, and if we've not met before, I am an organizational psychologist and logotherapist, and I'm a speaker and an author.

1:22 And my team and I at Gusto now help companies to enliveen, and fortify their operations and increase profitability by articulating their purpose and building inspirational leaders and cultures activated by meaning and purpose. Our mission is to help the companies we serve created destination workplace where people flock to join, are intrinsically motivated to perform at their best, can grow into the fuller potential, and are committed to stay and dynamically deliver on the company's mission, which translates to those higher profits. You can learn more about us and now we can work together at gustodashnow dot com or my personal site Eliscortes dot com. Getting into today's program we have with us today Doctor Joey Fawcett, who transform companies from a negative Kevin culture to a positive work culture that increases productivity and profits. He is the culture architect of the work Positive Framework certified executive coach and best selling author of Work Positive and a Negative World Team Edition. His work has appeared on Wall Street, Journal, Money at Journal, Money Watch, CNBC, Fox Business News, Entrepreneur Media, and countless other sites. He hosts the Work Positive podcast, which I've been on. I'm happy to say he joins us today from Danville, Virginia, Doctor Joey A Hardy. Welcome to Working on Purpose.

2:34 I am delighted to work on purpose with you a lease. Thank you so much. It's really wonderful to talk to a like soul, doctor Joey. I really appreciate who you're being in the world, and you know, we have a lot of work to do, and this beautiful book that you created as a is a wonderful contribution to that. Thank you for that. And it's just chock full of all kinds of resources and QR codes to take you to assessments and instruction and guide. So really well done, doctor Joy. Thank you. That means a lot coming from you, because you know I'm a big fan of yours and love your book and head you on the Work Positive podcast, so it means a lot. Thank you. Thank you well. So I love stories, as I know you do too, and I think we both agree that really good leaders tend to be good storytellers.

3:22 So we have to start this podcast your conversation about you sharing this wonderful story that you share in your book about nine year old doctor Joy and the boy that really set us off, set himself off on this journey that he's on today. Tell us that story if you would. Well, that cute little nine year old kid had a lot more hair than I have today, at least. Well. I come from a long line of entrepreneurs, primarily in agribusiness. My mother's parents were formative in my early life. My grandfather and grandmother ran a country store, raised tobacco, milked about eighty dairy cows twice a day, raised corn for them, and all like that. So I just thought everybody woke up when the sun did and ate three big meals a day because you were working hard, and then fell into bed after dark and got up and did it all over again the next day. But there was a purpose to it all, and family was very important. So here I am a nine year old little boy, and I decide that it's time for me to make my way in the world. So I did what most nine year old little boys do. I borrowed a lawn more I don't even remember whose it was. My dad had had our lawn moan, but I borrowed the neighbor's lawnmower and started mowing lawns. I got about halfway through at the front yard of somebody's lawn the lease and started sneezing and coughing and coughing and

4:54 sneezing. And I had asthma, and I had taken allergy shots since I was a two year old, back when they first invented allergy Shoon's right. And so I got to coughing and sneeze this so much that I could no longer finish became sick. After that, they discovered out a viral infection in my lungs. My asthma was triggered by that. Wound up at Duke University's Medical Center, as it turns out, one of the foremost pediatric asthma allergists in the world. So talk about being in the right place at the right time, right But one particular night, I remember the I was coughing incessantly, literally couldn't catch my breath. My mother slept on the floor beside my bed, literally because my complexion was greenish blue, and it was just a pivotal moment, shall we say. I get emotional even now just thinking about it. But it was one of those make or break times. In other words, if Joey makes it through the night, then we stand to chance.

5:58 That's what the intern is told Mom. So I remember Mom on her knees beside my bed, reaching up underneath the mis tent and looking in the eyes as I coughed, and said, Joey, I'm positive you're going to make it. I wasn't really sure I was going to make it until that moment. And when someone is significant as your mother in a nine year old boy's life right speaks truth to you like that, you just latch onto it because it was the only hope I had. So I made it through the night. The next morning, doctor D's came through, removed the medication that was in the mis tent with a few choice words to her interness who had called on us during the night, and I recovered, and I just kept getting stronger and stronger, stronger, and my mom's words ring in my ear, Joey, I'm positive you're going to make it. I didn't try to mow lawns when I got back home, but I did come back home and discover in my mailbox a big brown envelope by nine to twelve from the Sales Leadership Club. Now this was a one hundred years ago. It was a big deal back then to get an inscribed Christmas card. That is, your name, your family's name was printed inside the Christmas card. Now that's a big deal. If you get one, it's handwritten, because everybody's sending you something, right, it's already inscribed. So I said, well, hey, I can't my lawns, but I can do this. So I began going door to door in August in eastern North Carolina one hundred degrees on hundred percent of medical showing people pictures of Christmas cards, well, the actual Christmas cards inside my handy dandy catalog. See I can show them to you.

7:30 Now it's like a nine year old ban of white, I guess. And there was Frosty and Rudolph and all the other Christmas type characters on these Christmas cards. And I was asking people how many boxes they wanted to buy, And so I just kept doing that everybody that I ran into, and I got a telescope. Now I understand. When I was a nine year old boy, Neil Armstrong landed on the Moon July twentyteen, sixty nine. That's why I wanted a telescope east because I wanted to see if I could see Neil Armstrong see the landing. Yeah, yeah, that's right. I got a cassette recorder, which was new VOD technology then, and then the Coup de Grass was a three speed bike, which was the most speed you could buy back then. And so I learned then that positive mindset makes all the differences in the world and allows you to recover from any adversity, even those that threaten death, and you can move forward to live into your best life and to even do a little work on purpose. Wow, and you got that at nine. You know, some of us have to wait until we're you know, thirty nine, forty nine, fifty nine, sixty nine to get that message. You know, so you got to kind of a leg up on it. Doctor Joy. Well, when you when you're told that you might not make it through the night, at least, it tends to rivet your attention on the things. Yeah, I suppose, so capture those lessons, I suppose so well. I can certainly see, you know.

8:58 And that's one of the things I love about when I'm working with leaders and sid organizations and really helping them understand their own individual purpose and how it aligns with that of the organization. A lot of people do have these kinds of stories, but they haven't really done, though, the work of really helping themselves to understand why they're important and how they inform their sense of self, their identity and who they are and perhaps even their purpose. So I think it's beautiful that fast forward just a couple of years that you have now threaded that into everything that you do, and you know everything you know this whole notion of work positive, and you and I both know, I mean that whole that's just not so for so many people. So being obsessed with work positive, especially in a world that's constantly complaining about work, got to be an interesting place to be for you, m it is. It is a very interesting place and one that defies truth, I think, because the reality is if you're healthy enough physically, mentally, emotionally, you spiritually to work, that in itself is like a gimme. That's a huge opportunity for you each and every day. So it is a bit of a mystery that people would spend seventy percent of their waking hours doing something they're miserable at. Man, life is way too short to endure that kind of misery every day, and yet you and I both see it day after day after day. Yeah.

10:28 I'm going to say two things to that. So one, I want to quote from your book, They Work Positive and a Negative World book. You write in that book that sixty seven to seventy five percent of the American workers surveyed rate themselves as either dissatisfied or very dissatisfied at work. It's a huge number. It's an enormous number. Yeah, why do you suppose they are willing to do that? Why are they are they showing up every day? And the short answer is they box themselves in a financial corner and therefore have to work. Ioio, So off to work I go. We saw, of course, we'll talk more about this in a minute, but we saw during the Great Resignation that people literally discovered I can leave this job.

11:16 We're not talking career calling here at least, we're talking job, and it's disposable. So I can leave this and go to another company and hope that the culture in that company is better, or that I'll magically fall into a place where I fit wonderfully. It just doesn't happen by chance. It takes a high level of self awareness and emotional intelligence, the right questions. But it is doable, right and you and I both have seen it. We know we develop leaders who create that kind of culture that can attract top talent, that can reduce team turnover and actually grow people and profits. So why do we do it? I guess it's short answers financi But the other answer, literally, I think, is because we're just kicking the can down the road. That work is miserable, and the more you suffer, the more you brag about how many hours you work in a week, the more you talk about how many freaquent flyer miles you have, how much you're away from your family. It was almost a badge of honor from my generation as a baby boomer. Now, fortunately the Millennials and then certainly gen z I figured out that my generation had the highest divorce rate of any previous generation, highest addiction rates, alcohol pills, whatever you want to name of any and we have more kids in therapy. There's anything wrong with being in therapy, please, But the percentage of our children in therapy was higher than any previous generation.

12:50 So they saw what a trash heap we'd made of life by just selling our souls to the company store, and they're insisting we're not going to do that. We're not going to do that. Whereas my generation, if I had to put on my calendar for my boss to see, you know, therapist, I'm going to see doctor Cortez at three o'clock, No, no, I would never do that. However, gen Z puts it on there and it's like, Okay, I'll be gone for an hour. I'm going to see my therapist. So kudos to them for understanding how to create a healthier lifestyle for themselves and insisting that they do that. MM I love what you have surfaced here at Doctor Joey that I just kind of want to piggyback off. I have so many people oftentimes really complain vehemently about the generation that comes after them, and I have a different perspective about that. My perspective is each generation makes us better as a human race. So I think your rate, your your generation really helped us embrace the idea of a of a work ethic of you know, let's commit to something, be in it for the long haul. And you know, there's there's a trick. You know, there's a payof for that. You know, lots of payoffs. There are lots of good payoffs that happened for that in addition to what you forth.

14:05 I am the very end of the gen X generation, and we questioned some things and we didn't put all of our faith in that whole basket, and we kind of were looking for ways to be able to optimize our own, you know, our personal fulfillment as well, which I think was a nice good trade off for what you did. And then Gen Y or millennials come along and they're like, hang on a second, you guys, do you know you don't really have to work sixty eighty hours a week. That is nonsense, that's craziness. You don't need to do that. So they pushed back on that and we went, huh, we don't. Yeah, you're right, And then gen Z comes along and they're like, listen, guys, if this isn't meaningful and it's not attached to kind of a purpose, I'm out. And I really I don't belong in that culture, yeah, right, And so I just feel like every generation has really helped steward our consciousness and really our fullness as a human being. So I have we eat great hope for gen Y and gen Z And of course that's part of what I think both you and I are doing, is helping to create cultures that make them want to belong and give their best and will make them feel like they can absolutely and actually to help companies structure a culture in which belonging and becoming are de facto. Right, yes, Well, on that note, let's let our listeners and viewers take our first break as they start to digest some of the things that we've talked about. Here. I am your host, doctor Elise Cortez. We've been on the year with doctor Joey Fawcett, who transforms companies from a negative Kevin culture to a positive work culture that

15:37 increases productivity and profits. Is the culture architect of the Work Positive Framework, certified executive coach, podcast host, and author. We've been talking a bit about his remarkable story that set him on his journey toward work positive. After the break, we're going to get into some of the main aspects of his book and then talk about some of the areas that really call him around culture with us. We'll be right back. 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, 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.

16:48 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 Alise A. L Se at elisecortes dot com. Now back to working on purpose. Thanks for staying with us, and welcome back to working on Purpose. I am your host, Doctor Elise Cortes. Like Joey, I am also dedicated to helping create a word world where people realize their potential at work and they're led by inspirational leaders that help them find and contribute their greatness. And we do business at Betters the World. So I keep researching and writing my books. My last one came out in March of twenty twenty three. It's called The Great Revitalization, How activating meaning and purpose can radically enliven your business.

17:33 And what it's about is I am trying to help you understand leaders and business owners the lay of today's workforce land. What do they want and need from you in order to give their best? So I lay that out in the first half. The second half gives you twenty two best practices to build into your culture to give them what they want. You can learn more about it at my personal website at least Coortes dot com, or just pick it up on Amazon if you are just now joining me. My guest is doctor Joey Fawcett. He is the author of Work Possible in a Negative World Team edition. So before we get into just some of the kind of the structure of your book, I really like how you just lay out to five core practices. Just curious. I'm sure you've been asked this a million times, but why do you think so many people are mired in such negative thinking? Little set aside the idea that they're having you know, the miserable experience at work.

18:22 Why are we clinging to negative thinking? Because it's familiar, Okay, and we love familiar thoughts. We will bring to the familiar even when it's miserable. It's not that the old dog can't learn new tricks, it's that the old dog has to unlearn the previous tricks. Ye, So that familiarity just cultivates it. And I'm not a neuroscientist. I'm not even the son of a neuroscientist, nor have I played one on TV, just saying, but I have studied the brain a bit, and about the third time of fear or something similar to that circles your brain through your amigdalok your brain can no longer distinguish between the falsehood of that fear, the fact that that fear has yet to happen, and a reality that has occurred, So that fear maskerades as reality. It becomes your reality, and so you nurture it and nourish it and are convinced that it's true. I refer to that is not falling down the rabbit hole with police, but with Alice, right, And so you just go deeper and deeper down into that hole and you convince yourself that this fear is now your reality. Whereas it takes a little bit more work to accept something that's unfamiliar and it doesn't fit in a file folder in my brain. I've got to find a new file folder in my brain for it to fit in, or create one, and so that takes a little

19:53 bit of work. I don't know whether our brains are super efficient or lazy. The outcomes the same. I welcome familiar thoughts when I meet you, when I see you, when I'm in a situation, I immediately look for familiar points of reference. If it fits, that's great. If it doesn't, I'm pushing it back and I'm just not going to live there. So we become mired down in that negativity, and mired is correct work because it's familiar. Then we choose context that reinforce that negativity. We could spend the rest of the show talking about push media, and it's a fact they're in business to monetize negativity, right, and their mantra is if it bleeds, it leads, And so every newscast starts off with the absolute worst thing that could happen that day, and if it wasn't in your community. At least it's somewhere in another community. So they're going to import it, bring it right into your community as if it happened in yours. So don't despair.

20:56 If nothing nobody got murdered in your community, somebody did in another community. We're going to bring that right to your dining room table and help get heartburning indigestion. And we willingly turn this on. We start our days with it, and don't tell me it's just background noise. It is marinating your brain and negativity, so that by the time you get let's say, whether you're walking downstairs to your remote office or you're going to an office building, your brain is so marinated in that negativity, productivity, engagement, all the things that you and I help companies establish. It's like a fortress mentality. You've got to break through negativity first, and that's a lot of heavy lifting to start your workday. That was a fantastic answer, and I didn't even expect most of that. Thank you, doctor Joey. I was worth the price of a mission right there. Okay, now we got to listen to podcast, right right, Well, I learned all kinds of amazing things on podcasts, and it's my own, so we have to. I'm going to feel back one word that you used in that and before let me just kind of set this up. I have a fantastic spiritual and leadership guru. He is doctor Lance Secreton. He's written I don't know, twenty six twenty eight books or whatever. One of the latest Reawakening the Human Spirit, which I'm reading.

22:18 So going through his program, I'm always learning myself, always looking to learn so I can be of higher service to my clients. Just before I got on with you, I was reading a bit from one of his chapters in which he also talks about the importance the criticality of unlearning. So let's talk about it. What does unlearning entail? How do we actually achieve unlearning? So often assume because we've had an experience that that experience is formative. It is, it's determinative and formative. In other words, my identity is wrapped up in that experience when actually we a is conscious human beings right can choose to interpret an experience in any manner that we choose. So doctor Peel, in nineteen fifty two wrote this little book called the Power of Positive Thinking and in it. He says, within every adversity lies the seeds of opportunity.

23:22 So the choice is ours. Your brain is like a muscle. You can develop muscle memory with your brain. So do I choose to focus on the adversity, the storm, the circumstances that's around me that make me feel like I'm out of control, that I have no control, that I'm a victim, or do I choose to search for the opportunity within that? And in a work environment, competitive advantage is everything. So having persons who have that positive mindset and are digging for the opportunities then becomes your competitive advantage economically as well as attracting talent, reducing team turnover. So you want to unlearn ways, let me typify very quickly, growth versus fixed mindset, right, Carol, it's it's that kind of thing. I want to grow through these experiences or am I going to entrench and continue to see myself in a victimology?

24:22 Because you see what you look for, right And since I see what I look for, then it's a self fulfilling prophecy. At that point, if I can, as I put on a new settle lenses, a new filter, then I can find the opportunities within the seeds of adverts, the seeds of opportunity within the adversity. M Oh, I love that dog, Jerry, thank you. I can say for me, how I also think about that just in my own world, I have we I guess most of us have a default response. If something happens in our default is with this is what we do in fault part right. Part of the way that I that I have approached on learning for myself is examining what is my default whenever I possibly can, I have to sort of intervene in that to do that, and then looking for a different way that can respond that maybe is different or maybe it's I think it might produce a higher result or something. And so decoupling from that automatic response I feel like as part of learning, Oh, definitely decoupling from it. Now that's hard work because it's at such a deep level. For most of us, it's at a subconscious dare I say spiritual level for us even that it just becomes a part of our self identity.

25:34 So there is something without getting too existential here, there is something about putting yourself up for grabs, being transparent with someone else, authentic with someone else, listening to yourself and just gaining that self awareness. One of the ways we do that in companies is through a three sixty review, and we use a narrative as opposed to a survey monkey process. Nothing wrong with survey Monkey. No monkeys were damaged in the recording of this butt right, good right. But I work with the client to discover who are the five to seven people whose opinions you value. I work with a client to determine those five to seven questions that we're going to ask them. So you've got buy in automatically from people that you value and they sure. I give some categories, classifications, you know, we want some of the reports to use somebody you report to those kinds of things, but we've got buy in. There's an openness to listening to that. Are you vulnerable yes, Is it authentic yes? Is it personal? Of course, but not something to be taken personally, because we want to be on that growth trajectory which allows us to uncouple from certain patterns of behaviors that we become aware of as the mirrors held up and then we grow through that. Now it takes a very very supportive work environment and an investment in the leadership development of people in order for that to happen. I love this, doctor Joey. You can go access to as far as you want that. I'm down with that. So we tend to venture on this on this podcast like that. So that works for me

27:10 well, purposes wrapped up in self identity and who we see ourselves as and definitely the existential piece big time. So where I want to go next, because I want to set it up for the rest of our interaction and dialogue here is for listeners and viewers who haven't actually picked up your book and read it, I want to just showcase that you Your book centers around five core practices want is perceive, conceive, believe, achieve, receive, and so I just that's beautiful. I love that whole way of being able to categorize something. So could you just sort of speak to why those are such core practices for you in creating a positive culture. And then as we go on, I want to just let us talk about the things that relative to culture that are really most important and calling on you. Mm. Thanks. I appreciate that those those five core practices rhymes. So when I'm standing on a platform front of twelve hundred people. My brain doesn't sit down, So I'm right. It works, Yes, well, it does well. More to the point, it makes it easy for people to remember. I discovered these five core practices when the Great Recession was going on. And during the Great Recession, my wife looked at me one day and said, honey, aren't you supposed to be traveling? It wasn't for she was glad to have me, but she knew I wrote a cash cow every time I went outtown.

28:33 So I told her the cashcow I had been slaughtered. So there was no training and development money out there. So that was my wake up called. I had to decouple from oh woe is me? What am I going to do? There's a great recession too? How can I find the seeds of opportunity in this adversity? So BE came doing research into a period of economic history, not just in our country but around the world that I heard my grandparents talking about, and that was the Great Depression, back when depression was an economic rather than simply a medical term. And I said, somebody, Sorry, I mean to laugh at that, but it was funny that I said, somebody must have started a company or done something significant economically in and around the Great Depression? Who are they? And more to the point, what were they doing? And how can I do what they were doing?

29:40 So I began my research and I discovered some amazing people and that's where these five core practices came from. So I like to say that the work positive culture starts and stops in your head, and it goes back to that positive mindset we were talking about a moment ago. It goes back to fixed versus growth mindsets. You literally see what you look for, and this is the perceived core practice. And what does the word perceive intentionally? Because your reality is what you perceive it to be, then you manifest that reality that you perceive. So since you see what you look for, you want to focus on the positive and filter out the negative. This is not some Jedi ninja mind trick or something, because bad things do happen to good people, right There is something negative that goes on. Economic conditions like the Great Recession happen and we choose how to respond to those, or we choose to react to them. So, since you see what you look for, you want to focus on the positive and filter out the negative. There are lots of tactics and techniques we teach, like the Gratitude Diary, like the morning routine, starts your morning, starts your day, the work positive way. There's just all kinds of things that support that. So what we're after here is a company culture that wreck recognizes the power of the mind and empowers teams and employees, but particularly leaders to inspire, yes everyone to look for to hold up.

31:15 Here's something positive someone did this week. Here's something great that happened in the company. And it's that inspiration that generates hope, and that's what people are looking for, especially we're back to generation especially gen Z, begging for hope, and so they're provided that hope. It helps them focus on the positive and to filter out the negative. So you can yes, this happened, and yes this happened, but and you're constantly holding up those seeds of opportunity. Now, it's not some Pollyanna Ambi pamby squishy kind of trick. It's literally, and you have to dig harder some days than others. It's literally focusing on the po and that sets your mind in a positive way for the perceived core practice. Now, what happens is that let's say you start vibrating on that positive wavelength, right, You're training your brain to focus on the positive, filter out the negative. Not everyone around you is going to be doing that. Amazing, isn't it. And you're suddenly going to see these people in a different light. And this is where the conceived core practice comes in the relationships, whether it's within teams or with clients or customers, vendors and suppliers, between leader or boss and employees, frontline people, all of these things really matter a lot, and conceive is all about focusing on the positive people. You're not necessarily putting yourself in an echo chamber as such.

32:51 There's a huge amount of realism in this. It's just again you're choosing your reality. Jim Rohn, my favorite business philosopher, was fund saying that you're the average of the five persons with whom you spend the most time. Completely agree. The Framingham Heart study, you know, proved time after time after time that if you hang out with people with certain habits, you adopt those habits as your own. Eating was one of the first ones that they saw. Because that affects cholesterol, which affects heart disease. We become like the persons with whom we associate the most, I call negative people. So the key here is to deal with negative people without becoming one yourself, because inevitably there's going to be a discrowned customer, client, somebody on the team who doesn't quite get it. And so I've created a euphemism of e or vampires for these negative people er because I simply love the Winning the Pooh series, and because I really see it as a team meeting when Pooh and Piglet and my favorite Ti doublego or get together, right and they're planning the perfect play day for Christopher Robin and then along comes are and what does he say?

34:07 It'll never work? Right? So every one of us have been on a team that has someone who says that'll never work. We tried that back in nineteen sixty three. Didn't work the right right, Vampires, Because if we could just leave or at work, that would be cool. But you can't, because when you go home and you're with the people that you love and you're trying to do the things that you love with the people you love, guess who's in the back of your mind sucking time and energy and attention. Totally, It's that you are vampire, so you are Morson too, a vampire when the sun gets down. So it's highly, highly critical that you choose your top five to be persons who are perceiving so that you can conceive at work. Yep, yes, Oh my gosh, Doctor Joy, that was so beautiful. I love you and I we can't plead each other's sentences, but we won't do that well, so we'll remain independent. But let's let our listeners of yours podcast and we can do it. Absolutely, Yeah, absolutely, I think that'd be really fun. Let's let them marinating what you just shared there. I am your host, Doctor Elis Cortez, who got on the air with doctor Joy Faucet, who transforms companies from a negative Kevin culture to a positive work culture that increases productivity and profits. He is the culture architect of the Work Positive Framework, Certified executive coach, podcast host, and author. We've been talking a bit about mindset negative versus positive and his core practices. After the rank, we're going to just devote that

35:38 time period to talking about some ways that we can build a positive culture. Stay with us, we'll be right back. 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, performance, and commitment within the workforce. To learn more or to invite Elise to speak to your organization, please visit her at elisecortes dot com. Let's talk about how to get your employees working on purpose.

36:31 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 Elise A. Lise at elisecortes dot com. Now back to Working on Purpose. Thank you for staying with us, and welcome back to the Working on Purpose program. I am your host, doctor Elise Cortes. I mentioned in the last break about my lad's book coming out, The Great Vitalization. What I did for you is I put a three page downloadable assessment on my website for you so you can you can download that and then look to the extent to which your company's culture is currently designed to be able to meet the needs of today's workforce. The other thing about that particular documentary is it will help give you an idea a roadmap to creating the culture that is required of today's workforce.

37:22 So you can find it at gustodeshnow dot com if you are just now joining us. My guest is doctor Joey Fassett. He is the author of Work Positive and a Negative World Team edition. So let's have a little fun here at doctor Joey here. Not that we haven't been having fun so far, but I just wanted to vote this last bit here too, you know, letting us kind of riff and talk about some of your more favorite aspects of creating a positive work culture. Where would you like to start? Uh? Wow, Let's start with the believe core practice, which after perceive and conceived, because then believe is like the full chrome that perceive and conceive and then on the other side achieve and receive. Turn on. Emotional engagement with work is of supreme importance. I think back into our existential journeys. I think existentially it's of supreme importance for us. So it's this alignment of individual purpose with company purpose, with individual passion with company mission. And so when that alignment occurs, at least it's it's just simply magical. It is unbelievable.

38:37 The company becomes unstoppable. Now, we measure for engagement so often, right, and so when we pay attention to my emotional connection with my work right here in the gut, right, it's it's it's showtime. I mean, you are off the races now. I mean it is like the ights are on, the NBA announcer has welcomed you to the finals. It's time to take a shot. And that's that's the real jazz for me because when that happens, then families are happier, right, Communities become happier. I want to give back into my community, which is a received core practice. I'm achieving greater results, which means I'm more productive than I ever have been before.

39:24 So that believe core practice is the real point of the where the fulcrum is. For me, that's the jazz because that's when the whole thing gets energized, and so innovation, creativity, the kinds of things that are true competitive advantages and company cultures happen. That's when you see your operating income go up by nineteen percent, your revenue growth year up to twenty eight percent, and that gets the cfo's attention. When you start, you start using those numbers. Right, Yeah, I love that. That's so great. Yeahtional connection piece is so so important. I just it breaks my heart. I remember one of the stories I like to tell is I belong to a gym, which I don't belong to anymore, but I come in on Monday at like five five through the morning. I say hey, Stephen, good morning, how's it going, And without exception, his response was always is it Friday yet? Wow? And my thinking is, you know, we have one precious life and we do not know when the exit ramp is coming, and we are literally, you know, waiting for just the weekend come so we can begin our lives. It's such a waste of a precious life.

40:32 So yes, the emotional connection is so so so important. So I love that. Tell talk to me more about other practices that you especially are fired up about that you really like to help companies infuse in their culture. By the way, both of us enjoy helping create company cultures where people look forward to Monday as much as Friday, absolutely right, right right, and the people they work with. And so I guess the jazz for me is one that I mentioned just a moment ago, and that is people will surprise themselves by the results they're able to achieve. And I love watching that transformation.

41:15 It's like a mustard seed kind of experience. You know, you've got to do like that, asking is it Friday yet? Right, just watching him discover something within himself, and the company is nurturing and supporting that growth. And I know this sounds squishy, I know it sounds woo woo, but it is for real because that purpose and passion individually is getting connected with the company purpose and passion right purpose and mission. And when that happens, you literally literally need to stand back because you're going to launch and the trajectory is going to be straight up, and then the company's going to experience Hockey state growth and the world becomes a better place because yes, are enhanced, communities are enhanced, and we have I don't want to go too deep into this, but I'll just say this and run. We have allowed the negativity to rule long enough. Yes, And the great joy de vivra that we can all experience is in what I'm calling, much like your great revitalization, I'm calling the great redefinition of work. Yeah, where that purpose and passion can be kindled, fanned into a flame and amazingly just create light and warmth in every single community. And it can happen. We just have to be more

42:47 intentional about it. That's the world I want to live in, doctor Joe, and help co create. So you're right, we are both of us working in similar ores, each of us rowing the boat here, if you will. But one of the things I always like to say to that end in that regard is I really firmly believe I was raised by farmers who believe that work was a way of life. It wasn't something you had to do, it was the way that you lived. And so for me, I'm out to really help more people to experience work as their magical, mystical playground where they can realize their potential, where they do things they never believe they that were they thought were possible for themselves, and they're even dazzled by their own their own accomplishments and their own contributions brilliant, their own brilliance. And but that gets catalyzed by the world of work in a way that many other aspects of our life can't do, including even just you know, beautiful loved ones and relationships. Work is such a catalyzing agent. Now it can be a terribly negative catalyzing agent, but it can also be so incredibly such a growth catalyst. And of course that is what I think. Both you and I are really gloming onto and wanting to champion. Oh we are, at least you know, both you and I love our families. I love hearing you talk about your daughter. You tolerate all the stories about my granddaughter, and I appreciate it. Not that I tell them all the time. By the way, I have five ninety two pictures since we last spoke to see

44:20 them. So little girl, that's what we call my granddaughter. A little girl turned four a month or so ago, and just immediately prior to the run up on our birthday, we were having a conversation and she loves playing with Pops, and so we were playing together, and then I went, oh, I have a meeting to go to and I need to spend a few minutes getting ready for it. Pops has to go to work. Let me kiss you, and so we hugged and kissed, and in her embrace, she looks me in the eye and says, why do you go to work. Now. In that moment, there was this pregnant pause, right because I knew what I was about to say was really important, because I was going to be creating a mental typology, yes, for regarding work.

45:17 I looked at her and I said, Pops loves helping people. That's why I work home run doctor Joey. Well, thanks, I appreciate that, but it was a studied response, right. So recently she was going to go to the beach with her mom and dad, our daughter and son in law, and we were walking down to feed one of our horses, and we were walking hand in hand because she loves holding hands. And I said, little girl, you're going to be gone four whole days. I'm going to miss you. What am I going to do? I know? Over walking and she says, well, Pops, you can play with my toys if you want to. Now understand, for her, playing with play is her work, right, That's what she does. She develops mentally, physically, emotionally by playing. She heard what I said about helping others through work, and she was helping me by offering me her work environment. I could play with her toys if I wanted to, So, you know, when she got back and she jumped up in my arms. You know what I told her, Thanks for letting me play with your toys. I had fun.

46:37 That's so beautiful. And by the way, listeners and viewers, one of the things that makes doctor Joey really outstanding as an author and as a teacher is his whole book is really he teaches through story. So the whole entire book is beautiful stories about his life and his family and his connection and that's how he illustrates his points. So it's an incredibly relatable world. So just have to give a shout out for that dark joy. It is really very distinguishing. How you do that? Mm? Thanks? Well, I know that most people don't read past the third chapter of a book. Yeah, I know. It's just better not to hear that after we've worked hard. Ton't just don't tell you that right now, I'm working on another one.

47:20 Don't don't tell me. Really, I'm working on another one too. But it's like telling a mother her newborn is ugly, right, yeah, stop growing it? Yeah, well, I got to do that. But I'm determined to write a book that people would read past the third chapter and stories engage us because I see my story, you know in your stories, and you see your story in my stories. They're memorable that way too. They're sticky, so there really are porch experience, that's all. Yeah, we've already amazed. We got to the end of the show already. Doctor. It goes by so fast. You know that the show is listening to by people around the world. And what they were out to do either individually, is they want to increase their enjoyment and fulfillment within their work, and they want to also be part of helping create a workplace that they're proud of, that they can grow into their heart potential and give their best. What would you like to leave them with today? Oh? Wow, can I give you a gift for listening? That would do me a world for sure.

48:20 You bet the received for thirty seconds if you would. Yeah, all right, we learned to say thank you to others, so thank you for listening. Today. Go to work positive dot today and there's a free course called something to talk About. It's a meaning course. Help yourself to it. Enjoy it. Talk about something unfamiliar at work, and that is how much you love your work. That is a beautiful way to finish giving a gift, Doctor Joy, Thank you. I really enjoy being connected to you. We've now been connected for a bit and I love your work, reading your work, talking with you about it that each of us have important work to do. So thank you for sharing your wisdom, your heart, your grace on working on purpose. Thank you, thank you. I'm humbled to be here. Thank you so much. So welcome listeners inview. Is you are going to want to learn more about this remarkable man, doctor Joey Fawcett, the work that he does transforming companies from a negative Kevin culture to a positive work culture that increases productivity and profits, his books and podcasts, So you should go ahead and head on over to that site you mentioned, it's work positive dot Today. Last week, if you missed the live show, you can always catch it be a recorded podcast. We were on the air with doctor Raj Sosodia talking about his latest book, which is number sixteen.

49:35 It's called Awaken, The Path to Purpose, Inner Peace and Healing. It was an incredible honor to have him back on and have him share so deeply and openly and vulnerably about his life and all he went through to become who he is today. It was really incredible. I dare say you will laugh, you will cry, and you will be inspired by the interview in his book. Next week we'll be on the Earth Darren Tolly talking about his book Live Your Possible. Ignite your happy, authentic self and live a fulfilling life where to enjoy inclusion, love and possibilities. Sounds pretty good. Yeah, see you there, and remember that work is the best, one of the best adventers and means of realizing our potential and making the impact we crave. So please, let's keep working and looking for ways to work on purpose.

50:21 We hope you've enjoyed this week's program. Be sure to tune into Working on Purpose featuring your host, doctor Elise Cortes, each week on W four C. Why 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.