Your Best Possible Self is Ready to Meet You

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 it's 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 Cortez. Welcome back to the Working on Purpose program, which has been brought to you with passion and pride since February of twenty fifteen. Thanks for Tunadian this week. Great to have you. I am your host, doctor Elis Cortes. If we have not met before and you don't know me, I'm an organizational psychologist and logo therapist, speaker and author. My team and I at Gusto Now help companies to enlive and 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 companies create destination workplaces where people flock to join, are intrigically motivated to perform at their best, can grow unto their fuller potential, and are committed to stay and dynamic deliver on the company's mission, which you can all translate to higher profits. You can learn more about us and how we can work together at gustodashnow dot com and my personal site, Atliscortes dot com. Now getting in today's program, we have with us what you might call my brother in arms. His name is Darren Tolly is the CEO and founder in chief of Possibilities of Ignite Happy, a positive management consulting group on a mission to realize endless possibilities for human driven organizations by guiding employers in co creating happier, highly involved workplaces. The group facilitates positive change within organizations through purposeful peace, people focused practices, and joyful inclusion as a

2:17 spark to raise engagement and business results to new heights. He is the author of Live here Possible If not your happy, authentic self and Live a Fulfilling Life Where to enjoy inclusion, love and possibilities, which we'll be talking about today. He joined to today from Hartford, Connecticut. Darren A Hearty, Welcome to Working on Purpose, Doctor Alese. I'm so excited to be here. Thanks for having me, and so great to have you. As I was saying before we got on, it is a little amazing to me just how similar we are in terms of our expressions, our paths, what we were putting into the world. I'm so happy to share with my listeners and viewers around the world. Can you lift on. I'm glad to be here. I was reading your book and I was really giggling because I knew what was coming. It was great and I appreciate you having me on. Well.

3:00 I'm looking forward to being on your podcast as well. I didn't mention that you're also a podcast host. So listeners and viewers, those of you are watching us via YouTube, look at this gorgeous thing you put into the world, Live your possible and let me tell you, Darren, this is a generous book. This is a beautiful book, chock full of resources and exercises. Really gave a lot of yourself. It's gorgeous. Thank you very much. Yeah, I never planned on writing a book, and then life happens. I know it, wrote you. It sounds like, so that's what happened when you give yourself over to purpose. I know. So speaking of purpose, I want to start how it kind of maybe got sparked at least I want to at least see if I'm on the right track here. You share with us in your book, Darren, about your beginnings and that you were a premature baby by seven weeks born in nineteen seventy. You arrived early, and you were behind your peers for years and score corese skilled development, and for the first several years of your life, nothing ever came easy to you. You say it took a lot of effort, and I can imagine you write something in your that just kind of made me. It didn't make me cringe. It broke my heart. And that was that people offered you the idea that it would be great if you could just be average one day. Yeah, could you imagine? No, Yeah, I mean the intentions were good. I'll give it that. You know, back then, I didn't know any better, and I was pretty uh, you know, pretty bless ignorantly bliss really I was. You know, those days I was behind my peers. I was you know, there's things I just didn't know, and I think things came slower to me and how I actually learned and

4:33 how I would recite things. I remember I didn't know my ABC's until i'd say, much later than some of my peers. And you know, there's a beautiful story there that helped me in this song in the car, I love it. Yes, Yeah, you don't want me to say I don't think Elise yet. Yeah, there was. Yeah, there's a quick moment there with my grandmother and my mother where they they had me in the back of a car one day, you know, after we went picking apples, and you know, when you twist the apple you start to say ABC. And at the time I didn't know my ABC's and I didn't know what I was doing in the back of the in the car with my family after picking like sixty bags of apples. Yet what they end up doing is actually having me singing abcs with each turn. So by the time I got home, I actually learned my ABC's and it was actually a breakthrough moment for me because I was behind, and it allowed me to say, you know what, I can do this. And it was two loving people that helped me, help helped me fit in, help me be me, help me learn, and help me really persevere. What I love about that story, Darren, And this is where I want to see if we can try to connect the dots for our listeners and viewers, because as you know very well as I do, that a lot of people in the world would really love to try to understand their purpose, discover it, to detect it, and to live it. And sometimes it's right in front of us. And so you say in your book that your purpose is to bring out the best of yourself and those around you each and every day. You love helping other humans around you.

5:56 And I wonder if that early beginning of you know, really just starting so far behind and just aspiring for average was part of that, Cattily was it? Yeah, absolutely was. You know. Really it takes effort, you know, takes intention, takes the actions, and that's really the start of a lot of things. It opens a lot of doors. And what I started to realize is I started to break through and catch up with my peers. I started to see things differently, and I started to be more observe and I think I things were more obvious to me, maybe more clear to me because I was a little bit behind. And then I started to open up a little bit wider with my eyes and my thinking and my curiosity. And it was around age nine we actually started a local paper called the Silvan Gazette with my best friends JK and Bugger and I was a paper boy and when I delivered these papers, people looked a little disheveled on the weekends.

6:46 Back then, I had no idea what was going on. I get it now as an adult, Yeah, you know, back then, you know, I asked my friend, like, what are we going to do? We got to find out what really gets these people ticking? Like what brings them joy? Like? Who are these people? You know, why are they looking at I mean with the shoveled hair, half dressed, or maybe not dressed at all. And what ended up happening is we actually asked our customers, hey, would you like to be part of this paper. We like to learn what brings you joy. So we were innocent, young minds, just asking a simple question without an agenda, and we listened. We wrote it down and it took off. Everybody wanted to learn more about what got people excited. They talked about their pets, their gardens, their recipes, their trips, whatever it is that meet them, really enjoy the world, see the beauty in the world, get creative. I didn't know how profound that was at them at the time until later in life when I had an awakening and when I went back to this point in time, it was really special because what we allow people to do is actually just share their story for who they are. And what happened is that street and you know, at one point we're just waving at people. You know, you just wave somebody you don't really want, you just kind of wave right half hardly.

7:51 And what happened is people are waving people down and say I want to know more about the story. Because there was a platform, it was desires, there was a connection, there was is light inside like I want to know more about you. It was pretty wild. I totally get that, Darren. I mean, I know when you get people the opportunity to talk about their lives and you and you say it in your book too, and you curiously listen and care and want to understand. It's amazing what opens in the other person and the connection that happens as a result. And I know you teach that and so do I. So it's beautiful. And yeah, we need to create that space we do dicoveries to happen, for people to amaze us, for us to actually hear the connections that are there. A lot of us fill the air the space with you name it right right.

8:39 Yeah. I Well, I could say so much about that, but let's let's carry on, because there's so much from your book that I want to surface for our listeners and viewers. The next thing I want to go to, which you've already alluded to, and I don't know if you mean this one that I wanted to talk about, but you mentioned an awakening. Do you mean the one that you had in the D and I conference or something else that that's the the awakening. Yeah, that is what opened my heart in my eyes differently. Yes, let's talk about that because listeners and viewers. What I love about what Darren shares in his book and is about to share here is you know, being really when you really are honest with yourself and you recognize that who you're being isn't quite who you really thought you were being in the world, and that you have an opportunity to do something about that. It's magical. So your awakening, Darren, to me, is so powerful. What you've done with that awakening, Well, it was definitely like I said it was. It was heart wrenching, but it opened my world up in a whole different way and I actually changed the way I view the world. I thought I was a good leader. I thought I was one of the good guys, so to speak. And I went to this diversity and inclusion event, and you know, when I was there with a diverse group of folks, it was twenty five of us and I was one of four other white males. Nothing wrong with that. It was actually beautiful because it was a four day immersion event and the first two days we really got to know each other as human beings, as people with children, as people with desires and purpose and just dreams that we all want to live.

9:58 And I I was realizing I was connecting to these people like I was falling in love with these people over two years, very diverse group of people that in the past I probably would have pushed away. I was pushing away people, possibilities, differences, and I didn't realize it until then. So after the second day, I started to get so uncomfortable. I realized I was living in this bubble of trying to help help others bring out the best in everyone, including myself, And what I realized is that I was actually only helping people they're similar to me. It was like the bubble of saneness. It was terrifying. It was terrifying, and then yeah, it was really one of those moments where I could have just pushed it away and self rationalized and said I'm one of the good guys. I could have said, I'm doing my best, my attentions are good. It wasn't good enough. I realized it wasn't good enough. And what changed in me is actually cared differently because I fell in love with these group of people, and that's the difference.

10:52 I actually started to care in a different way, and I'm like, why was I not caring for people that were not like being the past? And it's not that I didn't care, I just didn't make the connection about how beautiful these folks were. So the next morning, I actually approached the group and I actually broke down because I was one of those guys. I didn't think you could cry in the workplace. I cried on the workplace, and I wasn't looking for sympathy. I was just recognizing that I wasn't being my true, authentic self who I was born to be. I was unconsciously biased at the time, but I wasn't aware of what the things were that were told to me that I actually believed that I lived out and I had to choose, no, that's not who I really am, and I had to own that that it's still my responsibility to take that privilege in a whole different direction, and I needed to own that. And I was crying because I was recognizing that my bubble had burst. The air that I was breathing.

11:43 It was safe, it was calm. I just came into work and work. Everybody else had to go over hoops and hurdles, go through hoops and hurdles to actually get to work, to get to the same place I was at, and I felt ashamed. I felt terrified I wasn't bringing my best. I heard stories from other folks that they were living lives that were just not fair. There's all these injustices that happened, all the divisiveness that we all know about. We know about it, but I was just being again ignorantly bliss to what was going on until I actually said, no, I'm going to change from here on in. And I actually at that point changed my purpose. I was no longer going to look at bringing out the best in people because that was the bubble of sameness. And I changed to say, no, I'm going to look at and enlighten people to the light that's the side of all of us. So I'm going to look at every single person in the world that there's a light inside of all of us, because there is this beautiful light inside of all of us that holds this love, joy, creativity, whatever it is that lights us up that that we're able to show up in the world this greater sense of purpose, and it allows me to look past all the things that stopped me in the past to actually see the beauty and every single human being, because that's so true if we actually let our guards down. I had to let my guard down with this bubble firsty. And when I did that, I expanded. It was hurtful. I was vulnerable. I was courageous, yet I was terrified.

13:01 And when I shared this story, when I committed to the people in this room that I'm going to do this for the rest of my life, I'm gonna write with the pink pen for the rest of my life to show that I'm different, to be different, to bring in differences, to welcome differences as strength, as possibilities, as discoveries. That's the space we're talking about. It's the space that holds the light where we could all shine, where we all belong, where we're all human, where we all all have the greater desires and dreams that we can live out. And I need to make sure going forward that's going to change. So I'm no longer going to live to be an average. Just the way I was treating people, Remember how you started the show, was I was actually treating people the way I thought I was supposed to be treated. That said, no way. Everybody's possible.

13:43 Anything is possible when we start to change our way, in our purpose, in our wakening. And I had this light up moment with my daughter that actually helped me see the differences that actually are really withinside of all of us. And I didn't know that. Really it sounds so obvious, it might even sound a little corny, but I had to let my guard down. There's just one I smile that's a logo happy and everything you see behind me, it's just one eyed smile that reminds me of how unique we all are, and that our joy and love and creativity, e anything that we own, is inside of us. When I saw my daughter light up in that moment, I recognize that it's just not about her. It's about actually being present and conscious and actually looking to the other folks, my daughter, other people in the room, for people that are listening, to actually create that space so we can find those connections, so we can find those discoveries, so we can enlighten the love and the light that's inside of all of us. So I'm a little passionate about it. If you can't tell I'm with you, I'm saying here here, I'm leading I've already said a thousand.

14:39 Amen's already, Darren. Now your one eyed smile guy, is that your watermelon Guy? It is? Okay, yeah yeah, the WG would call it, yeah yeah, watermelon guy. Yeah yeah yeah. Listeners, viewers, you just got a pick of the book. Is fantastic. You learn all about the watermelon Guy and such. But what we're going to do next is we're going to take you through a tour of his framework, his possibilities framework. It's really incredibly well thought out. It's very powerful, it's very robust. So we want to take you through each of these components, the nuts and bolts of us, if you will, then we'll kind of bring them to life as best we can here in the time that we have for the show. So I love this idea that you position them as the path of possibilities. The pop just brilliant, of course, I'm right there. It's energy, you know, it's vibration, it's all that great stuff.

15:20 So possibilities. Of course, the first p in that is purpose driven beliefs, so inviting the world in. So that is just of course I completely align with that. So talk a little bit about this first one, if you would, if you would bring it to life. For us, what is this? How do we live this? P Yeah? You know, we often say we want to make a difference in the world. We want to live with higher meeting and higher purpose. And if we don't know or we don't know how to connect to that, then how do we live in alignment with that? Yeah? So once we start doing that, everything starts to show up. Right. It's like we live with one word if maybe it's a purpose word for the year, or maybe there's something that reminds us of something special in our lives. You know, a lot of people find heart shaped things in the world, or they find a lucky penny, or they see a red cardinal and they think of something spiritual, maybe as someone that they've lost. For me, it's this one eyed smile reminds me of happiness and uniqueness and difference and inclusion all the time. But it's important how do we connect to that and why? So this belief, purpose driven belief is about inviting the world in. Once we know what that is, we know the direction we're on and we start to put faith around that.

16:25 And then we have direction and we're not sure, we're not sure where we're going to end up. But we know we're heading in the right space because if we align to this, we're actually inviting the world in. It's like it's like the bubble burst that that I was sharing a minute ago. We allow four things to be discovered and found once we know, Hey, I'm looking for the light inside of everybody I see and everybody I meet. Anybody that's willing to have this conversation, willing to open their eyes up a little bit wider, willing to share their heart with me because I'll share it with you, and what we're going to light up together. If we're willing to do that, Guess what happens. It becomes expansive. We're inviting it in. Where before I was pushing it away. I had this bubble was actually I thought it was protecting me, but it was actually limiting me. Yeah, So we had to break through it by starting with what does our purpose driven believe? And it could be one word. I have a statement, It could be one word like this year, I have a purpose word.

17:11 It's called wonder, which I know you like that word too, I do too, Yes, I do too. Okay, Well, it already came upon it. We've got to wrap our first break, So listeners, viewers, we were talking about the first pe of possibilities possible. Excuse me after the break. We're going to keep going afterwards and we'll hit O next, so stay with us. We'll be right back. I'm I'm your host, Doctor Les Cortez. I've been on the air with Darren Totley. He's the CEO and founder and chief of Possibilities that Ignite Happy, which is a positive management consulting group on a mission to realize endless possibilities for human driven organizations by guiding employers and co creating happier, highly involved workplaces. Deal with us.

17:52 Will 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.

18:32 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 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'm your host, doctor Elise Cortes. Like Darren, I too am committed to researching and writing my own books to keep lifting the world and do the work that I'm doing. So the last book that came out was in March of twenty twenty three.

19:14 It's called The Great Revitalization, How activating meaning and Purpose can ratically enliven your Business. And I wrote it to help the readers, who are usually leaders and business owners, to really understand how much the workforce has radically changed in the last few years. And then I provide twenty two best projects to help them create the culture that they need to be able to meet those demands and interests. You can find out about my books at elisecortes dot com, find them on Amazon and pick them up there if you are just now joining me. My guest is Darren Tolly. He's the author of Live Your Possible, Ignite Your Happy, Authentic Self, and live a fulfilling life, root to enjoy inclusion, love and possibilities, which we're talking about today. So we covered the p here Darren. Now let's go on to the O for open minded curiosity caring enough to learn, which we kind of alluded to earlier.

20:00 Let's let's generate that one next. Yeah, the key here for this one is really letting our guards down and you know, having a willingness to be open minded, you know, showing people that we do care. I think that's the most important part of when we're reaching out to the world, that we're actually willing to listen and we're actually genuine about it. There's so many times I've been conversations where I've seen people walk by and are people really listening? Do they really care? Sometimes and sometimes I'll say something just to see what the reaction might be, you know, just to make sure we're on the same page. But open mindedness is a willingness to learn. We're willingness, a willingness to step in, I should say. And the curiosity part of this is our willingness to actually take it and apply it. Because when you think about this, we all come from different perspectives. We've all learned different things and we're living that out and for us to be able to actually grow and expand actually need to take in different concepts, differences, different perspectives, different ideas. It could be just going for a walk and actually looking for the beauty in the world, being conscious, being present, just being curious about oh I see that there, or even looking at the clouds and say, oh I see that there. Part of it is grounding for us to be no, I'm right here, I'm present, I'm conscious, I'm here, and it allows us to actually take something else in because we don't want to be burdened by what we already know and just really step out of the certainty of our way. If you really want to expand and see

21:32 what's possible and really live a life that's inviting. Right, So we're now we're starting to connect to our higher purpose because we're open minded, we were has a level of curiosity. We're actually opening our hippo campus where we're actually opening it to say, hey, we need to see what's what's available for us, what's what's accessible for us to take and align to our purpose. Then we start building on that. Yeah, I love that, and then you know, reaching for what we what we what we maybe on what we think we know, suspending what we blie we know for certainty, and looking for something beyond. I just think that's so important, and you talk about in your book as well, which then I think really allows us to get to the next one, the S, which is skill sets unleashed and ever changing mindset. Right, if we're open to this creativity, then we're much more likely to be able to build a new new skill set or unleash it.

22:18 So if you could talk a bit about the S there, Yeah, you're spot on. You know. Our ability to actually learn is the ability to thrive, but our ability to actually take everything we do, if it's a win, a fail, or a mistake, we learn right. And if we actually align about Wow, I want to see light or I want to see inclusion as an act of bringing out the best of people, or inclusion has a way to actually see differences as strengths and power. If we do that, guess what could guess what happens? It shows up right, and we learn the skills a learned skill, there's a learned way of living. It becomes our conscious way of being. It aligns to our authentic self because that's if we're tied to something really important to us. Right, we live in with under reliving with a higher purpose, and we're actually developing the skills. Guess what, it is not only possible, it's sustainable. We're reinforcing the bonds. We're expanding that bubble because the further we go out, the stronger the bonds are. The bigger the smiles going to be, the bigger, the AHAs, the bigger connections, the more space we're allowed to create because it's expansive. Yeah, and I love too, even I totally aligned with this too. Is within that one the yes, there the skill sets unleashed as you talk about how learning with learning with change opens up opportunities and emotions, and so increasingly, I know you and I are both interested in the idea of opening the emotional realm, the emotional speak it because there's more more sensory data to pick up with that, more heightened awareness, understanding, and connectivity available through that bigger lens of emotions. Yeah, you know,

23:48 I'm chuckling a little bit because I was actually before my journey, I was pretty uptight and wouldn't share a lot of my emotions. And I'm still working at it, Like there's that range. Yeah, we need to have that ability to connect, and we build those those scales, or we build those ability to actually access those emotions, we actually learn how to deal with them. So if there are times that aren't great but we're sad, we're angry, we know how to pull through that a little bit better. But that allows us to actually really thrive on the upside. Totally dept happiness because there's a lot of people that I say happiness and they kind of look from one side or the other and say, I don't know if I could share happiness. I don't know if I'm allowed to have happiness. And that's because we're also confined in such a small little bubble. We need to start expanding that. So exactly what you said, our emotions can actually spand with it, and whether our emotions comes more joy, more joy than misery is happiness.

24:37 That's the equation, right And to your end, one of the things I was going to definitely service with you is back on the you know, can I can I can I experience? Can I have happiness? When I'm all speaking to audiences, I often talk about passion, inspiration, purpose, et cetera. And usually about seven or eight minutes into I talk, I'll often ask the audience, what are you passionate about? And I look at the sea of faces and I watch as they take in that question, and then I register there, you know how much stat it gets displayed on the forehead right here, right? I realize that for many, many, many people in that audience, they don't have an answer to that question. They do not know what they're passionate about. And I understand that. I've been a member of the Walking Dead myself. I understand that's why I'm working on what I'm doing now, same reason for you, because I've been a member of that and so one precious life and you don't know what you're passionate about.

25:26 No, no, no, no, no, let's fix that, right, Let's let's go find a way to find something to be passionate about, something to be joyful about, something to be happy about. There's just too much available. Yeah, and you're worthy of that. We're all worthy of that. Exactly. I personally had doubt. I wasn't sure if I was. And I start, I had to really start to change the dialogue in my own head, so then I could actually have the impact that I want to have other people like I am worthy, I am deserving, I am possible, I am better than average, right, And that starts right there, as we both know, right, And I love how you start the book that with that as well, and earlier you were talking about being able to, you know, learn to be able to handle those bigger emotions and learn how to move through them, which makes us stronger. And that to me builds right into your second s strong resilience turn challenging moments into opportunities.

26:15 What do we have there? Yeah, there's there's a lot to this one resilience because I'm not just saying it's easy. I'm not saying just go be happy or just you know, light a match and everything's possible. This takes work, This takes effort, and it's proven that the actions we take actually will lead to the future that we're desiring. It's not one hundred percent, yet it gives us a better chance, and it gives us a better chance to actually pull out of the tough times, the dark times, because I know we can't. I've seen I've heard so many people come back to me and just say thank you so much. With tears of love and you know what's possible for them, and it's just you got to believe me and trust it and try it out yourself. Yet, there are a few different stories in this part of the book. You know, there's one that's about noble acts which I had to forgive someone that really harms me in life that you know, folks will have to read more about that. Yeah, I had I realized that I need to forgive this person because I need to let myself free. Yeah, and I'm not saying anybody has to do that.

27:14 Yet, if you have the heart and the ability to work through that and be courageous and be vulnerable, being able to forgive and have compassion and know that it's not your fault that you know what it's what's an issue that happened to then I really encourage you to work through that. There's another example, and hear about really looking at your reservoir or positivity like this is one of my favorite ones. Like this is something that listeners could actually take away from tonight and just say, hey, go jot down some memories throughout your life. Maybe it's just hey, remember that silvink is out that paper. Maybe it's the Apple story maybe you know, maybe it's the pink pen. Just write the title like some memory and write them down, because what you're starting to do is create these this really reservoir memories that you could pull from that you could start to connect to that when when times are tough, you could reflect back to how you got through something or how you could actually pull through it with you know, your childlike eyes again, living with wonder and awe.

28:10 And one other thing is just serving with heart. That's the ask to the Strong Resilience chapter. When we serve with heart, we actually give of ourselves and give back to others. We do let up. In fact, it's proof there are studies that actually show that life slows down. I kind of like that, Yeah, especially as big get older, right Darren exactly strained down, Yeah exactly. I was just gonna say it slows down, not to procrastinate, It actually slows down for us to want to step in and do more. M Yeah. I really like your your acronym that you share in the strong Resilience area of be strong. So you already said it serve with heart, trust with belief, Trust with belief. That's who trust is very hard for a lot of people. As you know, two ways than are reserve. The reservoir possibility overcomes he out very hard, very very That's a lifelong thing. The noble acts you, then you listen, and then giving back. One thing that I know as a logo therapist, Starren, is that we as humans are not at our best when we're just consuming life. I don't care how great and beautiful that life is. If we're just consuming it, we're never going to be vital. And I know this from my own experience of having a very beautiful given life to me when I was in my mid twenties with the maide chaffeur and a gardener. What we need as humans is to be of service when we are needed in giving of ourselves. That is when we are most vital. So I love that giving back part of be strong. Yeah, it's so true. You know.

29:37 I kind of again chuckle when you say consumed, because there's a whole bit in the book about how we consume happiness. There's so many ads. There used to be a lot of advertisements about hey, you got to eat dish, you got to get thish, you got to have this. That's not happiness, you know, maybe it's a small small part of it, like a small small part of it. Yet it's to your point, it's about what we do with the actions we take. How do we serve others, How do we get back? How do we actually serve with heart connecting from here becomes it becomes spiritual. Oh, no question, my friend, no question, which takes me right to the next one that I have to I have to have you get your perspective on, because it's I imagine with wonderment living in awe, you and I are totally on that same link, that wave. I've had some amazing authors in the show talking about these things.

30:18 So imagine with wonderment living with What's that from your perspective, Darren, Yeah, it's one of my favorites, especially with a year of wonder for me this year, Like even just thinking about how we look at life in the word wonder itself, Like if you think about the definition of wonder, do we wonder with skepticism or doubt or do we actually wonder with what's possible? I wonder what that beauty is around the next corner. I wonder what that light is in that individual. It's about how we're framing how we're looking at the world. We're so busy looking past things versus looking at the things that are sitting right in front of us. So if we start to look with our kids self eyes, our childlike eyes that are filled with wonderment and all, we could actually get our eyes to actually had a little bit more like when when think about it, when you're younger, you're like, when's the last time we did that? Right? To do that right? So guess what happened. Our eyes are bigger, we get to take it in more, our mouth opens up wider, and we actually take in more air so we can actually, you know, enjoy that mobody even longer. And it's about connecting to creativity. I mean, we don't have creativity. That's what people told this in high school. That's what people tells us as adults.

31:22 I mean, there are studies out there, several studies. I know, NASA uses a study that they they actually test adults on what percentage of adults actually have the ability to be creative. They actually did the same study to five year olds. You know what percentage of five year olds you think, what percentage of them actually had the ability to be creative? To answer some of the same problems that they ask the adults, what percentage you think ninety eight one study exactly one was one hundred percent. The other study was ninety eight percent. How about adults two to five? Here're spot on. Yeah, what happened? Yeah? What happened? Right? Responsibilities We had to get a job, we had to raise children. Hopefully if you you know, if you feel those are stressful at times, what happens that's the responsibilities that echo weighs us down and we have to slow down to actually notice to beauty, we have to notice and look at the world a little bit differently.

32:17 So this is allowing us to not only crave curiosity, that allows us to do it. And that's what's fun about the one eyed smile. It's a one eyed smile. When you think about the one eyed aspect of it. When you focus, usually you want to focus in with one eye, sometimes just focus in. But allows us to get creative, allows us to connect to what really lights us up. And believe me, well, we all have the ability to be creative. And right now, I think in the world it's so divisive. It's either you've got to be right or wrong. Right, it's zero one. But the beauty is in between. That's where the possibilities live. That's the space we're talking about. Totally with you, totally with you. All right, let's grab our last break. I'm your host, doctor really score as we're on the air with Darren Tolly, who's the CEO and founder and Chief of Possibilities at ignite Happy, which is a positive management consulting group on a mission to realize endless possibilities for human D organizations by guiding employers and co creating happier, highly involved workplaces. We've been talking about his possible model. After the break, we're going to continue with the last three letters and cover off on a few more things. We'll be right back. Doctor Elise Courts has as 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,

33:52 performance, and commitment within the workforce. To learn more or to invite a lease to speak to your organization, please visit her at a leasset Cortes 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. Thanks for staying with us, and welcome back to working on Purpose. I'm your host, doctor at Least Cortes. I mentioned in the last break that my latest book, The Great Revitalization, came out in March of twenty twenty three. What I did for you is I created a three page organizational assessment for you to devise and be able to tell the extent to which your culture is currently meeting today's discerning standards. You can find it on my website gustodashnow dot com.

34:51 You can score it and then to see how you're doing for yourself if you are just now joining us. My guest is Darrentolli. He's the author of livere Possible, Ignite your Happy, Authentic Self, Live a fulfilling life where to enjoy inclusion, love and possibilities, which we've been talking about today. I've been covering his possible model here and we've gotten up to let her be here and that stands for brave authenticity, be true to you boy and so many people. And it's a journey, right, I mean, this whole idea of being able to be truly authentic, it's a journey. It's a journey. And guess what we have to be vulnerable about that, right, Britans, we do. It's true. She's inspired me with this one. You know, it's a lot of this book about living your possible. I'm not looking for you to change or anybody to change into somebody else. Right, that seems like it's worked. We don't need to be fake. We're already been told to be somebody else throughout our whole lives. So this is really about stepping back into rebotalizing who we really are. And I think I just said that because you just mentioned your book. Yeah, you know, it really is. It's like, how do we get to ourselves? And that's letting our guart down, it's actually spanding that bubble. It's creating that space where we can actually have fun, we could play, we could actually explore and actually say things that maybe we believe we were afraid to stay in the past. Like I say the word love a lot more than I ever used to I talk about, you know, loving people and bringing out the best in people, seeing the lighting people. I bet you there's a lot of people on the on the call saying I don't know if I could do that, or that sounds like too much. But the real reality is like, once we connect into who we are and how we want to make a

36:22 difference, step into it, lead into it. Yeah, be amazed what's going to happen? You actually celebrate your own uniqueness because you're actually making it safe for other people to step in and play with you and also be unique themselves. That's what's going on here. It's easier to be you, it's easier to be me. It's a lot easier. That's what's crazy to me is I never recognized that I was acting like what I was supposed to be. Well, I was told to be as a leader, as a person who I was supposed to hang out with, how I was supposed to lead, I was supposed to have all the answers. But no, that's all wrong. In my opinion, I was doing things upside down when I actually started to invite people in and invite people's ideas and thinking and to give people the out opportunities move move the megaphone away from my mouth to someone else so their voice could be heard because they're actually stronger. Yeah, that's me.

37:08 That's what ended up being like, it's not about me, it's about everybody else. It's so beautiful, and I know for me, as I give myself further over to my authenticity hearing. One of my favorite things to do these days is what I'm out in public. I love to go and celebrate love that I see when I see couples holding hands, I see them connected at a restaurant having a conversation. I've come over and it's received well about ninety nine point five percent of the time. I've never had anybody say go away. Invariably they're like, they're just tickled. I say, I just saw your love radiating from across the room, and I just wanted you to know that I saw it. And I love doing that and I love sharing that. Can I see you with my unique guys, I see you.

37:49 It's special and I wanted you to know I saw it. Yeah. I love I love that you did that. You took that act and you made their day right. Yeah, we're going to feel more comfortable, Yeah, Yeah, What's funny about it is, you know when I do that, I mean I've done it many, many, many many times, and I continue to do it. Is you should start the questions how did you meet? And who picked up on who first? And you know, I get to like the fifth question, and usually then I realized that they're leaning in and they're ready for the next question, and I'm ready to go move on and do I just wanted to acknowledge you what they're ready for the next interview question. So I know they're enjoying it, and I love that, and there's a lift and now they get to hear, oh, yeah, we do have something special. Someone else saw it. Yeah, and you leaned in, you're curious. Yeah, all the things you've been talking about.

38:31 Yeah, exactly. Yeah. And it's like just allowing ourselves to show up, be silly, be connected to the world, be comfortable sharing that love. Maybe it's a finding like I talk about in the book about I have found many signs out in the world and sharing that with people was well, I wasn't us comfortable in the past, Like I think it's so important. Like some of these things are referenced as paradilia is, which as you see something that is in the object of something we'ret familiar with, but when we share it, people are like, huh what, So we just got to get comfortable sharing whatever that is that lights us up. Agreed, That's why I gave the example that I did, And in so doing, I think we get to your l which is linking connections, thriving in joyful abundance.

39:12 You know, I love this figuring out what matters to us and connect us and meaning and seemingly unconnected ways. That is just that's delighting in the joy of the magic of what we're what we live in, and it's it's beautiful. Yeah, well, exactly the way you shared it. We start to connect in different ways. Right, we're setting ourselves up for what we're looking for, what we're surrounding ourselves by our willingness to actually connect and be open, be be through sharing, be through hugging, be through just connecting and important ways. And it could be whatever that is. It could be loved, could be happening. It could just be appreciation for someone, could be gratitude. You know, there's some importance about there's a lot of importance around having gratitude, not only to have it yet so it shows up and you recognize it. We're linking to it, We're connecting to it. It's all about connection. What we're doing here is we've actually created a connected or really it's like a it's a wheel. It's just going all over the place.

40:04 It's just our ability to live as ourselves cautiously. That's what we're slowing down to notice and to see and to feel. And that's what this is all about. It's linking these connections. We hear that all the time, it's all about connections. Well, this is it. We've gone through these steps going from purpose to open mind and as to building these skills. We're resilient. We're actually living with wonder and open mindedness. With our imagine imagination, we're able to kind of connect our brave, authentic self to this place. This is what really feeds us. This is the transcendent door to happiness. Yeah, atable, this is it. That's the word I want you to want you to say, transcendent because that now, what that means is that we are literally transcending to a higher, more, bigger, vibrant realm.

40:51 And that is I know that sounds really woo woo, but increasingly, more and more people, more and more leaders, more and more scientists, more and more scholars are using these exact same words. They're not woo woo anymore. They become more of a standard issue when you're willing to really see them, embrace them, and allow yourself to be comfortable with them. Yeah, that's so important, especially what's going on in today's world. Right, we're surrounded by humans. Right, we're still working in workplaces where they have humans. Right, So there are human needs. And to your point is wo woo. Stuff is actually the human gap that we are filling with this type of thinking and believing in being and how we're showing up and how we're actually embracing people to step in with us, getting more comfort, linking what's possible, seeing what is possible. People are starting to do things they never thought was possible. And that's what's so explosive about this is where the whole analogy pop comes from. They start popping all around us endlessly. Well, and then when we think about you know, there has been such a frenzy of conversation about oh my gosh, this technology going to take our jobs. Well, one thing that we can do as humans is become more human. Technology can't do that. We can become more human. And I think that's the work that both you and I are doing Darren, through helping individuals, leaders, teams, companies to become more human, that's what what's what we're doing.

42:09 Yeah, absolutely, you know we're filling the needs. Right. These are human ecosystems filled with human beings with opportunities and issues, and we're filling those gaps right. You know, it's really about more about leaders, being effective leaders, stepping into this zone of actually working with different human beings right through you know, spiritually even even connecting in a different way where it's heart to heart, just leaning in too, say I really care about you. Tell me what's going on like those types of things. Oh yeah, in my in my book, I don't know how far you got into. But there's the EQ chapter, there's the SQ chapter where I talk about those things, you know, where we are connecting over hearts and really you know, trying to really see people for the uniqueness that they are, like you talk about. But the spiritual intelligence piece is also becoming more talked about too when you're talking about it too in your work right where more organizations are leaning into well what does that mean? That means higher order source of values, including purpose, right, including transcendence that would be in this spiritual intelligence kind of camp. So more and more of these voices are converging. Yeah, especially when you think about purpose and be it shared and be it the folks that we work with. If we can connect those dots, you know, kind of what we're talking about here, If we could sync up and actually ask people what do you value? How do we tie that back into our overall values and actually live it. I mean there's so many people that kind of roll their eyes and say, oh, yeah, we have values. It's on the wall, it's on the website. No, it's not what we mean, right, So we're talking about stepping into it. How do we

43:40 bring this stuff to life? This isn't about you know, skills and different tools and words. This is actually about living it and being it right and everything we do, every decision maybe higher maybe performance coaching, opportunity, every way to coach someone up, how to get people excited, how to listen, how to love. I'm totally with you, totally with you, and you know, if we didn't take your last the last letter in your possible that's E for endless possibilities. Keep it popping. So now we're talking about cascading right and making sure that it stays alive and living among other people and spreading the joy and the happiness. Yeah, it's really a ripple effect.

44:21 You know, if you think about we're at this place, it's transcendent. The doors wide open. You know, we're living this way comfortably. We're more confident, we're worthy. We're saying phrases like I am versus am I. You know, we are seeing this, we're seeing the possibilities. We're actually welcoming the next possibility. And they're all around us. And guess what, they're always there, and it just we got to this point where now we start to accept them, we start to notice them, we start to embrace them. It's successful to all of us as long as we're connecting those dots from our purpose to being able to kind of live it all the way through to this point. And they're going to start popping like it's like making popcorn and a popcorn maker, it just starts popping right. It's there right, and it's beautiful, and sharing it with other people will keep it alive because then they're going to look at you with that look up. And what's gonna end up happening is they're going to share it with you like you shared with that couple, and it's just going to continue to go and go and go. They're going to now feed it back to you like these pictures were shared with me, and many of them from a really good friend of mine, right they saw these one eyed smiles. And it's other people that they start to fill your heart based on the things they share back with you, So it's endless, and then you want to share it back with them.

45:36 You want to share back out and different avenues and different different podcasts and another book, whatever it might be, because it is possible when we put our mind to it, anything truly is possible. And we have so much more power than we think we have as we think about what's ahead of us. Agreed, And you know increasingly, you know, think about this. Ladies and gentlemen listening to this podcast. You've all been in communities and organizations where you walk in and the energy is so lackluster. It's so it's just a down energy. And you've also been in places where it's vibrant and alive, and you know, it's like what I want to say electric if you will, Well, that's everything is energy, and so what we've been talking about here is we really are talking about increasing the energy between ourselves, in our organizations, in teams. That's really all we're doing here, and it's beautiful and there's there's ways to actually measure emotional energy, vibrant energy, and that's what we're talking about is lifting that energy. So I just think this is important that we also situate that because I think sometimes it gets hard for people to connect those levels of dust, but they can feel that energy, they know how to tap into that. Yeah, it's really about how we orient that because when we point that energy and the way we're talking about it truly amplifies the impact. It's a multiplier, It's huge, that's right, that's right. I've I've always been good at multiplication. I've never was great at subtraction, but I'm good at multiplication. I know you are too. I love that one. We got to the end of the show already, Darren.

47:07 And the show, as you know, is listening to by people around the world, and the reason they listen is because they either want to better learn how to increase their own fulfillment, commitment, connection to their work. They want to become better leaders, They want to know how to do business that betters the world in a way that and how they operate their business. What would you like to leave them with? Yeah, a lot of this is within reach. It's possible for all of us, truly, you know, we just need to take the steps and recognize that, hey, we can't have the impact, we can't have an amplifier effect if we actually just slow down and create this space where we can discover and it just starts with one step. This is a huge process over time, but hopefully we have lots of time left in life. Yet it starts today. It's that one step, you know, it starts with that level of purpose. You know, go through the steps like we did today, and we do have more power than we think about our future because as we set up what we do today and we're conscious with that, we waken to the possibilities that are ahead of us. We start to set the direction that we want to we want to lead, the way we want to live, the way we want to love, the impact we want to have, And it is possible for any of us. And it starts with you, how you're showing up, how you're being So take a look at that and you can have an amazing impact.

48:27 Beautiful way to finish. Jaron, I'm so happy to know you, to have read your book, to be elevated by it, to share with my listeners across the world. Thank you for being on working on purpose. Yeah, thank you for having me. I look forward to having you on my show soon like I'm looking forward to it. Listeners and viewers, you are going to want to learn more about Darren Tolly, his book Live Here Possible, and the work he's doing at ignite Happy. So you can start by visiting that website. It's ignitehappy dot com just as you could imagine it. I g N I T E Happy ignite happy dot com. Last week, if you missed the live show, you can always catch it be recorded podcast on air with Colette Phillips, she's the communications and pr entrepreneur. We were talking about her beautiful book, The Includers, the Seven Traits of Culturally Savvy Anti racist Leaders. The book and our conversation really raised the cultural intelligence to help improve individual and collective lives in a way that I haven't really seen.

49:16 Just it it's very fresh in a lot of our ideas. Listen and you'll see just what I mean by that. Next week, we'll be on the air with Feisal Hope once again, this time talking about his book Everything Connects, How to Transform and Lead in the Age of Creativity, which I hope you better understand the nature of creativity and innovation and how it can be nurtured inside organizations and beyond. See you there, and 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 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.