The Long and The Short Of It

Episode 132 - How

Transcript:

Pete: Well, hey, Jen.

Jen: Well, hey there, Peter.

Pete: So I had a three minute conversation with a very, very genius friend of mine, that, in hindsight, felt like a twenty-five minute conversation, such was the wisdom shared. And there are a couple of nuggets that he shared that I'd love to unpack with you. One, in particular, relates to "How's". And I just think you, as the "How's" expert, might be best equipped to help me unpack this some more.

Jen: Ooh, I'm the "How's" expert. Alright, I'll take it. This is The Long and The Short Of It.

Pete: So I guess for context, when I say "how", we're talking about how we do things, how we complete the work that we're completing, or work in the career that we're working in, or how we show up in the meeting that we're going to. Is that how you think about "How's"? That's at least how I'm thinking about them right now.

Jen: Yeah, I mean, I use Simon Sinek's Golden Circle framework. When I think "How's", that's the first thing that comes to my mind. So I think of "How's" as actions you take to bring your values to life.

Pete: Actions you take to bring your values to life. Okay, that's good. I really like that. I could hear you say that many, many times, and still feel like I've heard it for the first time every time you share it. So this friend of mine, T.K. Coleman...brilliant, brilliant human. I'm going to put a link to a bunch of some of the thought leadership stuff he's put out there in the Box O' Goodies, because he's...

Jen: Isn't he the voice of the altMBA?

Pete: Yeah. At the end of the Akimbo episode, "I just don't think it's possible," that's T.K. Coleman. So, he's so smart. Anyway, we had this really amazing conversation where I was asking, you know, "So, what are you thinking about? What are you noodling on at the moment?" And he was saying, "I'm trying to get some clarity around how I do things." So he's like, "I've got a pretty great understanding of what I love to do, and why I love to do it. And what I'm realizing is how I do that thing possibly impacts how happy I am, more so than the what and the why."

Jen: Mm-hmm.

Pete: And I was sort of like, "Tell me more. What do you mean? I don't really understand. I sort of understand." And he just said, "A really simple example is, consider someone who's a writer or might be a writer. So what they do is they're a writer, and that is in alignment with their why because they really love expressing ideas in written format, or however they want to word that. So, they've identified that they love and get tremendous value from the act of writing. But how they get to live out that what, that why, how they get to use that superpower that they've identified is actually more important than the fact that they get to write." And so he was saying, "Consider the journalist, you know, that works for, I don't know, The New York Times or whatever, one of the newspapers out there in the world. And you can imagine that that might be a really cool job on one hand, where you're like, 'I'm doing the thing that I love, and I'm getting paid for it. And that's amazing. And how I do this is I get to show up, and sit on the computer, and blah, blah, blah.'" And then he was sort of saying, "But imagine if in that job, you got a call at midnight when you're asleep, from the editor saying, 'You have to come into the office, and change this article, and tweak this fact, and do this thing.'" And he's like, "All of a sudden, you're going to be probably miserable. Because I don't want to live in a world where I'm getting woken up at midnight to tweak the thing that I've written, and all of these kinds of things." And so, I just...we got talking about how you get to express the thing that you love is possibly more of a contributor to your happiness than the actual thing itself. Am I making any sense?

Jen: Yes, complete sense.

Pete: And I should say, when T.K. said it, it sounds so much better. And he said it in like a fifteen second perfect summary. And here I am, like thrashing for four minutes.

Jen: Oh my gosh, I love it. Yeah. At some point, we have to sidebar about how you scheduled a three minute call with someone. I think that's crazy and wonderful. Like, that is amazing. Okay, so I resonate with this idea so deeply, so strongly. Because, first of all, I think it's important to know your why. And, of course, having clarity on what you're doing is helpful. But I think the real magic lies in how you do things. That's where your personal sense of character exists. Because you can have so many people who have the same why and the same whats, but how they do something defines who they are. And I'm immediately drawing some parallels to my own experience being an actor. Because I think as an actor, you know, you're in this cyclical job cycle, so you get a lot of these experiences. Your why, you know, it stays the same. So, you have a very deep and passionate connection to storytelling, bringing stories to life. And then, the what is going to be (I'll use in my personal experience) a Broadway show. So, I'm looking at these parallel experiences. One, in a Broadway show I was in, where every day going to work felt like such a gift. I felt I was living on purpose. I was so proud of the story. I felt connected. I felt valuable. I felt like myself. And then I did another Broadway show where going to work, I could feel all the energy drain out of my body as I typed in the punch code to open the backstage door. And I would like sit at my station and wonder, "How can I get out of this? And in both cases, my why is in place, and I'm doing a Broadway show, but it was the how. And the interesting thing (and I think this was in the example T.K. shared with you, too) is that it's not just how I am showing up, it's how I'm interacting with how other people are showing up. There is like a collaboration there, or a teamwork, or a collective sense of how we're operating together that I think is key.

Pete: Ooh, yeah. Okay, that's really juicy. I think that ties into something I've been grappling with in the last probably twelve months in particular, and I've shared this with you and a few others. I don't think I've said it on the podcast. So you and I have run workshops together like the Big Ideas Lab, we've done some Learning Labs, we've done some work with corporates, we've done a bunch of really, I think, amazing and fun collaborations. And we also have done similar things, similar whats, as individuals for companies, for leaders, for changemakers. And throughout last year in particular...maybe it was isolation, maybe it was pandemic, but I think it was more just an evolution of our relationship. I certainly had this realization, and I think you did, too. I certainly did. Which was like, "Oh. I have much more fun and much more enjoyment when I get to build a workshop with Jen, rather than her doing a thing with a company over here and me doing a thing with a different company over here, and then we compare learnings. What if we just did them together as a team?" And so the what and the why is very much the same, but the how we did it was, to your point, more how we did it with one another, and as a team, and as a collaboration. And that was like, we found so much more fulfilling, to the point where we've made it a little goal for this year and we're doing a lot more work together in these environments. So I just, I think that's like a real life example of what you were saying.

Jen: Yes. Oh my gosh. And like the second you started talking about the corporate work, I was like, "Oh, I think I'm catching what he's throwing here." I totally agree with you. Yes. The other thing that comes to mind...I think I might have been venting to you a little bit before we hit record. That I have found myself in a position right now where I am not loving how I am doing what I'm doing. Like, I have taken on so much additional administrative work in order to be able to do my what, which is teach my classes, coach my clients, do all the creative work that I love doing with performing artists. And my how has gotten really overcomplicated and like just too much. So, I'm spending some serious time right now simplifying the how. Like, this is the theme of the moment. Kind of related to my theme for the year of, "Bring it home." I'm trying to bring everything back to center right now. So, we're moving onto a different platform so that we can streamline everything into one place. I'm looking at what responsibilities I've taken on, seeing what can I delegate, what can I streamline, what can I get rid of. Because as much as I love my what...and oh my gosh, I do. It is amazing to me that I get to do what I get to do. The how has started to get in the way of being able to fully appreciate, in every moment, how lucky I am to get to do what I love. So, I'm glad that I clocked it. Because I happen to have control over this particular element. I am my own boss. So now I'm telling my boss, "Things have got to change around here." And she listened to me. So, you know, working to streamline so that I can get my how's (to your earlier point of defining, "What are 'How's'"), "How's" are the actions you take to bring your values to life. And I do not value complexity, so I'm trying to get back in alignment with simplicity.

Pete: I really hear myself in that. Hence one of my words is "ease" this year because I somehow overcomplicated a bunch of the things that I was doing, and projects I was working on, conversations I was having, and unnecessarily so. Because I, like you, don't necessarily value complexity, or unnecessary complexity, I guess.

Jen: Yeah, yeah. Unnecessary. Thank you for amending that.

Pete: That's okay. And I know I mentioned it was like a three minute conversation with T.K., but we still talked about...there was more. The second part of the conversation was, he was kind of sharing this quite brilliant, I thought, basketball analogy between like, say, a Michael Jordan. Where he was sort of saying, the story that he, T.K., had told himself for so long as an entrepreneur was you had to do all of the things, work on all of the weaknesses, make sure you're good at all of the back end stuff as well as the front end stuff, the speaking as well as the organizing, the invoicing of your business as well as the hiring of staff, like everything. And he kind of compared that to like, he had to be the Michael Jordan. He had to be good at everything. And then he had started to like explore this idea of like, "Oh, but what if you had other people that helped you with those things?

Jen: Like a team?

Pete: Right, like a team. What if you intentionally said, "How I'm going to do this thing, this entrepreneurial venture, is I'm going to focus on this particular skill set, because I know that I'm really good at it. And someone who's really good at operations or the back end, I'm going to get someone to help me with that. Or someone that's really good at finance and accounting, I'm going to get them to come and help my business with that." So yeah, we kind of got into this topic of (I think related to how), how might we utilize our strengths and bring in others to help us with the things that we're not as good at? We don't have to be Michael Jordan, I guess is what I'm saying. We don't all have to be Michael Jordan.

Jen: Yes. Oh, that's so interesting. Because I feel very called out by this part of the conversation. Because I am someone who likes to take that sort of global, 360 view of everything that's happening. But I also recognize, maybe it's not that there has to be someone doing that. But on certain teams, like, I don't know, the Chicago Bulls, you might want a Michael Jordan.

Pete: It was very helpful to have Michael Jordan.

Jen: Right. Right. But there were also other players playing very specific positions. And that's what made the whole team shine, was that everyone knew what their role was.

Pete: Yeah.

Jen: Hmm. Interesting. I'm going to have to do some journaling on that, because I definitely felt a tightness in my throat as you were calling me out there. So, thanks for that.

Pete: That's okay. That's okay. So bringing all this back around (basketball metaphors aside), and thinking about how we do the things that we do, what are the learnings? Or what do you take away? Or is there anything else that we've missed?

Jen: I had sort of joked that this would be a sidebar, but I'm realizing that the fact that T.K. was able to come in for three minutes and blow your mind is very much what we're talking about right now. That how he showed up was very authentic to who he is, values intact, and able to deliver an incredibly clear impact by showing up with his superpower.

Pete: I totally agree. And I feel like he, on some level, knew it in the moment. And so what I think this requires is something I wrote down right at the start and forgot to mention was, all of this requires a level of self-awareness. Which is, am I the kind of person that is motivated and driven, like a Michael Jordan equivalent? Or am I someone who has a certain unique superpower that not many people have, that I really just want to double, triple, quadruple down on? And what are my values? And what is my what? And what is my why? All of that is an exercise in, before any of this, is an exercise in self-awareness.

Jen: And that is The Long and The Short Of It.